I WATCHED A TIKTOK ABOUT SUBSTANCE USE AND FREEING YOURSELF FROM JUDGING YOURSELF ABOUT IT BUT I’M AFRAID THE ALGORITHM JUST KNOWS ME TOO WELL AND IT’S A ACTUALLY SELF-VALIDATING TRAP

I’m high again. After two weeks clean.
I smoked too much, and now my mouth is too dry.
It makes swallowing too…you know.
It’s only weed, it’s only witches’ warts. It’s chill. I’m working on it. I’m wanting to do better,
so I will be better (whatever)
The point? I run through the possibilities in my head:
all angles,
every iteration,
each pitiful progression
to the same end.
whether I crack the whip upon my bare back
or not,
it all dissolves into a sigh.
(fucking nonsense)
But where else would cliches have made their names but in the truth
herself?
So why write?
Why reproduce the same
electrical impulse over and
over and over down to it’s finest point,
down and ever down
from mere ego to mind to fingers to sloppy paper
to cut-up paper glued to cut-up paper
to shredded paper to fiber to fabric
to pillow?
(ugh, the panic starts to build again)
It sits deep behind my eyes, and I’m afraid it will take me.
(afraid I’m an idiot. What if?)
The writing will save me.
The pillow will save me too
as the tangible ebenezer
to distract my own existence from
my own weak existence
after desperately manipulating my surroundings to
produce proof
that I was ever here at all.
(you do and then you remember)
It was only ever fear after all.