Sometimes, I’m dead. I can practically taste the charcoal.  

Other times, I’m the sun. I take one after another, the label spelling out “ARE YOU WILLING?” 

Before the pearls are choked down, my hands start to feel far away. My head whirs but this time with brilliance, circularity that mimics what poets say about life, death, and all that crap. My driver to the bottle.

I get too close. 

The temptation is too much.  

Again, again, again. 

Want to go back to the grave? No? Drink up. 

Again, again, again.  

One more and it’ll keep it going, chop, chop! 

Yet, as always, three turns to five, and five turns to seven, and  

Before I know it, I’m dragging out the sick from my stomach. 

I push deeper, I take more, I “ask for it” because my patience is out and what else is there to do with all this life? 

I’d get too excited with it, finally feeling, not needing to count to breathe.

I’d rake it across my skin, 

See the blood and look at it with awe. 

This is what’s keeping me here.  

I want to dangle off that edge to really feel it.  

My pupils seize up to the size of the moon, 

But I’m full of sun, it pours out from my wrist with every slow drag.  

When I’m dead, I make it quick.  

When I’m dead, I just need proof.  

Not with this, no, when I’m the sun, I feel ecstasy looking at what I can do,  

The power I have over myself.  

I could go deeper, could take more,  

Feels religious,

And like everything I do: I can’t go halfway.  

I’ve got the sun in my blood, burning my veins and bursting with light, only to collapse into itself, a black hole in its place. Again? Here?  

Again. 

The sun is still a star. No burning lasts forever. 

I need life, I need my next hit. “Where’s the closest bar? Actually, you know what? Punch me, yeah that’ll do it,” 

Make it count.  

I could beg for it as much as my throat will allow.  

Try me.  

But I know what happens, how this goes. 

I’ll be the one to hurt you, and I won’t be able to tell how much I mean it until I start to breathe again.

 Take what you will of that. Take everything. 

“Pass me the bottle, my knife isn’t sharp enough and I’m getting sick of self-check outs.”