Drugstore Perfume [Poetry]

untethered ember

untethered ember

september8twenty21

my lovely little pill, my halfhearted excuse. I'll be your success story and your muse. I'll sing out raw and true, I'll break in half backwards for you.

but you lied to me so perfectly. I was your picture perfect, your shining gold, your secretly blue yogurt-lid. I always thought the stationary aisle was a place of promise. little did I know it is one of deceit, and I linger near pen packets and new rolls of tape because they are the only things I know how to use to try and put the pieces back together. being held up with paperclips and rage.

and now I can't trust anything. now the impulses laden so deeply under my skin are traitorous and vicious, out for blood and glory. you told me I would get what I needed when you handed me those gleaming gold star stickers, those hidden razorblades, the perfect incentive. you told me I'd be okay. do I fucking look okay to you?

now I squirm and boil, full of divine rage and broken promises. if they're truly out to get me, I might as well go down fighting. go against them entirely and become your model dropout. I know now I'm better off, and I probably won't make it past thirty anyway.

academia, my beloved, my sacred tomb, you damned failure. you asked for everything and made me think I was giving nothing. how dare you twist my bones around each other like it's second-grade art class. how could you abuse such a voracious will to learn and love, how could you become my heroin? I hear the stories of addicts and silently wish it were different between us. you're air and I need you to breathe, you're hands and you're choking me.

I hate how home it is. I hate how you've taken my dark and used it to entrap me. I hate that I feel empty and worthless without you. I hate that everyone still holds you on this golden pedestal and sees me a lunatic outlier, a rare failure of your pristine methods. I hate what you've done to me.

they told us knowledge was the key, they told us to go to college and find more success. I've only found pistols full of B+ bullets, engraved to ensure your performance never falters. money's made a mockery of learning; they only teach us how to overproduce at the expense of our skin, our heart, the marrow in our bones.

and god, I am so tired. I want to go up in flames, reigniting the ash remains of who I once wanted to be. I want to go to sleep for a few years. I want to rest and I don't know how.

I am but a crisp and I still try to act like there's a flame lit. I am nothing now