#10

Elizabeth
What helps?
Filling my mind with distractions,
idle chores, trying
to just stop thinking.
TV, laundry, bourbon -
clouds. Daydreams.
Memories. I try to escape the now
with thoughts of the better past
but there's no way away,
no true escape.
I'm pulled back to now
by my empty bed.

(tools)

#9

tools, me

Cheap cigarettes and alcohol are mine,
the ways I cope during the hardest days.
At night so that I can cut out the lines
in-drawn by daily lies, I try to daze
myself with television screens and dreams
of times when I will finally give in,
when in release I'll scream my loudest screams
before the darkness soothes away my sins.
In lies and drugs and wine I try to find
something to help me cope – to cope with loss,
the loss of what and who steadied my mind.
For now I drift. In sleep I turn and toss.
There is no help that stays beyond an hour
but love, and that I tormented til sour.