I. Addiction
He was the drug; she was the addict.
She needed him like she needed air.
With white knuckled grip, she clung to him.
He left; she begged for more.
He returned; she got her fill-
her lethal antidote.
The poison was toxic, but the absence was torture,
and the cravings insatiable.
She was always seeking,
always longing,
always aching.
He was never enough-
a momentary relief followed by a greater void.
Power was not in her body;
she surrendered it to him.
"No" was not in her vocabulary;
she surrendered that as well.
Sunken eyes,
greying skin-
she took another hit.
II. Withdrawal
A blurry reflection gazes back;
she begs it to be strong.
Six days on an empty stomach.
Wide-eyed on an empty bed.
Trembling body, hazy mind, racing heart.
Reality begs her attention,
but her eyes are closed:
her eyes which beg for sleep, but sleep won't come.
She rocks.
She shakes.
She paces.
She wishes for her poison or for her death.
She ruminates.
She obsesses.
She dreams.
She gives herself her wishes in fantasy.
Her world slips further away.
Her body is not hers.
But the numbness feels kinder than the pain.
III. Recovery
Every morning, another tally etched in the wall.
Sober one more day.
Avoidance is her ally.
Her body lurches at the thought of exposure,
so she hides herself away.
She seeks safety in the shadows.
She rests.
She regains her strength.
Her eyes begin to clear, but the glassiness remains.
Her starving body begins to beg for food.
The clock begins to tick again.
Five tallies on the wall.
He reminds her what she can not have-
spiteful ink on cheap paper.
Sabotage on her life of sobriety.
Ten tallies.
She stands over an empty bin
and violently rips his words apart,
until they look as worthless
as they had always been.
She finds her footing, and steps back into the light.
She discards every piece of her life of addiction.
She reclaims.
She redefines.
She remembers who she used to see looking back at her in the mirror-
long before he became her reflection,
and she his.
New habits formed, old ones abandoned.
He tells her she is hooked.
He tells her she's a fool.
He tells her she is dependent.
She laughs.
Thirty tallies turn to sixty,
and sixty to ninety-
or is it a hundred?
She loses track;
she loses interest.
And she hears the whispers echoing down the telephone line:
"Addiction is in her blood."
Some call her a victim;
others condemn.
And she lets them think what they will.
She found her power.
She took it back.
She learned how to say "no" again.
She has nothing to prove.
She leaves a wall marked in tallies behind,
and it speaks for her.
She needs nothing from him anymore.
