Alcohol - Franz Wright

You do look a little ill.

But we can do something about that, now.

Can’t we.

The fact is you’re a shocking wreck.

Do you hear me.

You aren’t all alone.

And you could use some help today, packing in the

dark, boarding buses north, putting the seat back and

grinning with terror flowing over your legs through

your fingers and hair . . .

I was always waiting, always here.

Know anyone else who can say that?

My advice to you is think of her for what she is: one

more name cut in the scar of your tongue.

What was it you said, “To rather be harmed than

harm is not abject.”

Please.

Can we be leaving now.

We like bus trips, remember. Together

we could watch these winter fields slip past, and

never care again,

think of it.

I don’t have to be anywhere.

in which you anxiously anticipate events that will not occur - Mira Gonzalez

in the end he told you that he didn’t want you

but he never did you the courtesy of leaving

out of necessity, you reconstructed your identity around being alone

though you almost never thought of it in those terms

you spent time allowing all the wrong people to think you are beautiful

watching them blindly perform unreciprocated feelings onto you

at a distance twice removed from the act

because you refuse to know the feeling of not loving anything

though the feeling will force itself into you sometimes

everyone will tell you what the most painful part is

they will say it’s the moment nothing is left for you in him

or it’s the moment he finds you in someone else

but nobody will tell you that it is possible

to move further from reality every day

until there are no parts of you in anything

Abracadabra Acudubillah - Warsan Shire

Everyday since that bad

thing happened, I've been practicing

                   a spell:

how to disappear

from yourself,

within yourself.

I've noticed

each time I leave,

something in me keeps

                   going.

Something in me turns

its back on me—

someone else reflected in the mirror,

someone else answering

to my name.