you are rotting. the bathroom floor is sticky with blood. this is probably how it ends. leaking life out of

your body, while shattered green glass from beer bottles is digging into your back like bullets. like your

father driving drunk and swerving on the highway, the deep gut feeling of something wrong fills you as

air should. green glass like you would collect in fifth-grade’s playground sand, piecing together the

heineken logo, and swearing to an empty field that you’d never touch alcohol. you should’ve made good

on your promises.

this is how people die with no one to hear their last words. it’s black cherry white claw in open wounds.

it’s cotton in your brain and its lips that taste like iron. it’s lonely. at least in prison, you get a last meal

and a guard to feel sad for you. there’s no place in god’s hell or heaven for you anyways. you’re sure

purgatory has a lukewarm seat for you. maybe you’ll get lucky and score a constant, uncomfortable dread

that settles between your bones.

it’s cold in here. it never used to be this cold. it’s the dead of summer and you’re 99.9% sure the liquor in

your stereotypical red solo cup is in your hair now. why are you so cold? maybe it’s the metaphorical

knife in your heart, maybe you’re just actually about to die. you think if you tried to call for help, no one

would hear you over the sleazy local band’s cover of wonderwall. you’re just like your father. the

alcoholic gene finally caught up with you. you’re at fault here. just like always.

and now you’re crying. how stupid of you. what’s next? you clutch yourself and sob? press the glass

deeper into your drying blood? still upset you’re stuck in new jersey? is all your potential gone? how

predictable. serves you right for ending up here, dressed like a girl your mom would stare at

disapprovingly. a whore. a slut. he called you volatile with pity in his eyes. you couldn’t tell him you had

to look up what that meant.

you don’t think you’re volatile. no, you’re like the world’s worst frankenstein. like mary shelley’s first

awful draft. you’ve got your mom’s eyes and your father’s anger. like a puzzle with all the wrong pieces.

a body is sewn together in a hurry. an oddity. a desperate, out-of-control mess. a terror. maybe you should

get more alcohol. you like forgetting your flaws. you like forgetting yourself.

he’s drunk too. probably eating some poor girl’s face in a hazy corner of the house. he’s been mean all

night. you, sick and twistedly, like him better this way. cause a drunk, mean boy is better than a sober,

nice one. sober boys lie. they thank you for coming when they’re really thanking you for bringing your

hotter friend. you wonder where the hell she is. sober boys like to call you pretty, but drunk boys like

your body. that makes you feel good. you never seem to get enough of that feeling nowadays.

you are pathetic. useless. wasted. a greasy pizza box that can’t even be recycled but no one seems to care

about that stuff anymore. you just barely sit yourself up. the green glass is in your palms now. your eyes

can barely stay open and you can’t even think. the bathroom is too white and cold for your brain to

handle. the girl in the mirror is not you. it can’t be you. it’s getting hard to breathe. what are you doing

here? why’d you come in the first place? he’s never going to talk to you again if he sees you like this. you

had been doing so much better. did someone turn the thermostat up? or is that just your shame finally

kicking in?

it feels like a warm breath. like a boy sleeping on your chest-type breath. like exhaling because you want

to live, not because your lungs are too weak to inhale and hold for more than a few seconds. warm used to

mean more than the third round of shots hitting your central nervous system. it used to be words mumbled

in ears, empty promises, and half-full cups. it was kings and queens at the round table. it was a shared

smile. god, it was legs entangled under a duvet cover while you were domestically nauseous.

you’re fully standing now. gripping onto the marble sink with more glass pricking your skin open. this

time, in the soles of your feet. the pain doesn’t faze you as much as your face does. the eyeliner on you is

half there, the lipstick is smudged, and your dark circles have come to town. the air in the room is gone in

an instant, the music has stopped abruptly, you can’t breathe, there’s an anvil on your chest, your hands

are trembling, your heart is thumping and you can hear it, that’s gross, you’ve never sweat so much in

your tiny teenage life, this is definitely how it ends, and

oh my god.

you will waste away getting wasted.