like confectionary kintsugi, she learned to bandaid her mistakes with sprinkles, each tearing regret with a fresh recipe and each scabbing criticism-shed coat with a layer of frosting. making things palatable—thats how you survive when the ground is barren. if you dye your burnt blackouts pink they wont seem so dark. this she tried with others, spoonfeeding them mounds of crystalline silver linings that crunch in your mouth to combat that lingering metallic sting of blood. this is why people began to leave her; others do not sustain on sweets and all that sugarcoating floods your mouth with grit. when her last lover left, she awoke to the sight of a carefully crafted piece of candied ginger resting on her nightstand—even the forbidden fruit only requires a single bite.

instead of flying, wailing sparks of windshield and flashing lights littering the street, let me show you alcoholisms true face: a darkened vignette behind the eyes, encompassing only the faintest candle-light thought left, the crumbs of souls seeking the spirits they cant buy before the sun—i no longer sleep or wake—or listen to the echoes of your mother and coworkers, their inoculation, hallucinations while you kill time between days or while tightroping the hours, fogging up your own glasses, the humidity of another defeated day veiled within a trembling tomb of a body. know that the thoughts you do not think now will return with a vengeance, but only if you survive the seizure convulsing on grass instead of on the road—youre one of the lucky ones, you know. LOOK at my skin: im caught between self-digestion and putrefaction! see the bloating and the tearing and the decomposing—all while being alive (technically). and then calmly, on the day you decide you dont want to die, place your hand anywhere on my body and see that i do not feel human, because poison doesnt have a face.