CW: Drug Use

you say: there’s a ghost crawling up my throat

& hiding behind my teeth. i don’t look up. i say:

i have a hand tremor. i sleep with one eye open.

you say: how do you draw? i laugh. drugs. (we

know better than to talk about these things in

broad daylight.) atenolol? i wonder if you just

googled that. no. propranolol. (it’s not like i

know the difference.) i say: anxiety tangles

roots deep in my soft belly & refuses to let go.

you say: try meditating. (you mean: did you try

pissing in the wind? did you try pushing that

boulder up the hill for a couple thousand years?)

another list & another smiths song & another day

of carefully not mentioning fire or self-immolation

or disorderly bedrooms. we brush pinkies &

the flies buzz above us. i say something that

i can’t remember three seconds later & you’re

the vulture with red lips & yellow teeth

hovering over my rotting corpse & yelling

about normalcy, about routines, about

pretending & pretentious & only having two

days left to be warm bodies. (this part is familiar;

this part is common ground.) i throw out the

usual pride & ego insults & you say: you’re

insecure, you’re cowardly, you’re hiding behind

your own self-righteousness. (this is all true. it’s the

way we say it that makes it seem like it’s not.)

next week you’re digging through my pill drawer

& i’m wondering if you can get high off

antidepressants. (i’m wondering if you’ll

try.) the bottles click together & i’m trying not

to remember the time i caught myself with two

handfuls of lexapro halfway to my mouth & no

clue how they got there. you say: you okay? (read:

did you try that new face mask last night? can i

copy your english homework?) sure i am. three

fingers tapping against my desk & a leg bouncing

under the table & always flinching away when you

reach for me, when you suffocate me with a million

hands that are no longer your own. you just seem...i

don’t know. off. i crack a smile. hormones, you know?

i think i’m supposed to get my period soon. i take the

bus home from school & you order me coffee & we

make jokes about growing up as if it isn’t terrifying.

we clink our cans of coke & toast to dying young,

or never dying, or maybe both at the same time. we

repeat the same three/four/five phrases again & again

& say without saying: is anybody listening? is

anybody listening? is anybody listening?

is anybody liste