the (non) master of my own (sham) destiny

15. Frustration

it's fine she insists,
as if overdosing on benzos
is perfectly fine and something
everyone does on friday night.

tell no one she says,
like keeping it a secret isn't
the first step down the road
of addiction.

don't worry about me she says,
like i won't have to explain to her daughter
that her mother did what she did
because she was sick,
and not because she didn't love her.

Spoiler

So yeah, this one's pretty raw. I have this friend who has a lot of mental health issues and got prescribed a highly addictive benzo on an "as needed" basis despite her family history of substance abuse issues. Now she's admitting to taking too much when she goes out but she doesn't see it as a problem. She's also asked me to keep it a secret, which is a thing addicts do. And she has a 5 year old daughter and a crazy-ass family which just makes the whole thing worse. Ugh so much ugh.

Based on @Aley's prompt to write a limerick/my life.

There once was a girl with a Master's
Whose job search felt like a disaster.
To the world she applied,
but she got no reply,
'cept to say someone else was faster.

17. there's no crying in chemistry

sweep up your thoughts with the shattered beaker
--dispose of them in the red bucket before anyone sees.

take your tears and pour them into a hazardous waste container
before they burn like sulfuric acid.

dry your eyes with kimwipes
and get back to work.
make your emotions disappear
like salt into deionized water.

18. conquered


my spirit once flew with the angels
as i rode the horses of byzantium,
filling my heart with the sweet wine
of conquest.

then his lightning tongue
sent sparks down my trachea,
lighting my lungs for a second
until they charred my flesh
like thirty years of cigarette smoke.

he tyrannized my thoughts,
coating me in his stardust
until i could not move.

now i am his statue,
but i do not mind,
as i am always worth returning to.

Product of the editing workshop. Reworking of the (non) master of my own (sham) destiny with some of last year's NaPo fragments mixed into it.

ETA: did some more editing during the workshop. Here's the new version.

i once rode the horses of byzantium,
my spirit entwined with angels in the wind
and my heart only filled
by the sweet wine of conquest.

then his lightning tongue
sent sparks down my trachea,
lighting my lungs for a second
until they charred my flesh
like years of cigarette smoke.

he tyrannized my thoughts,
coating me in his stardust
until i could not move.

now i am his statue,
but i do not mind,
as long as I am worth returning to.

Okay so I've done a lot of free writing in the last couple days. Let's see if we can get some poems out of them.

19. stuck

i used to see beauty
in cerulean skies,
but now there's only shadows
and used-up dirt
between the trees.

the only constant is change
(or so it is said).

my hemisphere is tilted
more toward the sun
than it was in december,
but everything else is the same.

there's got to be a way out,
something more than this not-life,
this stagnation.

keep showing me the door
and i'll approach like a trembling dog--
perhaps i'll sniff at it
but i know that if i run
the door will shrink my cage even more

so i stay in the corner
where it is safe,
even as i dream
of being anywhere else.

20. hiding

why do i think that
i'll find a new beginning
trapped in old stairwells?

21. the lost zenith

eyes in the road
but mind in the sky,
i'm scared of crashing
back into reality.

i hear angel voices
calling me to fly,
to be one of them.

i know i would fall,
but i miss that sensation
more than sun-warmed grass,
more than my favorite song,
more than chocolate on my tongue.

Oh look I wrote a song last night! Sort of...I mean the verses don't match and it's terribly cliche, but I do like the chorus. So I'll just type it up for now and maybe work on it later?

22. The Chase

I was the kind of girl
who made you dance with me,
couldn't wait for an invitation.
You had those sweet brown eyes,
yeah I was hypnotized,
couldn't see your hesitation

Could I have done things differently?
Could I have made you mine?

(chorus)
I'm a thousand miles away
and I still see your face,
though you didn't want to stay
and there's nothing left to say
somehow I'm still
singing for you tonight

I chased you like a dog
chases its own tail.
leaving love notes at your door.
Hopelessly optimistic,
perhaps unrealistic
like I'd never heard no before

I wonder if you think about me
though you were never mine

(chorus)
I'm a thousand miles away
and I still see your face,
though you didn't want to stay
and there's nothing left to say
somehow I'm still
singing for you tonight

I know that you're out of my life
I know I should want to be free
but chasing you was its own high
and I'm missing that tonight
oh...

I'm a thousand miles away
and I still see your face,
though you didn't want to stay
and there's nothing left to say
somehow I'm still
singing for you tonight

23. Ode to Cover Letters

It is the most generic,
soul-draining,
professionally personal document
I will ever construct.

I have to sell myself
as a typo-free half page
extracting the very letters
that will make some total stranger
believe I am worth something.

I am nothing but my experience.
I am nothing but what I can do for you.

A thousand novels could never be as hard to write.

24. nostalgia

remembering you is like
a piece of popcorn lodged between
my back molars,

an indulgence that tasted pleasant once,
but now only digs into my gums.

even if your name
never reaches my lips again,
it carves into my mind,
refusing to be forgotten.

25. insomnia

it is one of those nights
when all i remember is goodbyes
slipping from too loose lips
and all i want to say is
i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry
and i wonder how he's moved on
when i am stuck in this desire
for something that never was.

Oh look, another song in progress. This needs more verses and stuff, but I like it.

26. I Can't Save You

Over and over you make the same mistakes ,
And you wake up screaming my name.
You never take responsibility,
Always looking for someone to blame.

I'll remind you how you crashed and burned yesterday
but you don't want to listen to a thing I say...

I'm not gonna fight anymore, anymore
because I can't save you,
I can't save you, no-oh

You were high like the summer
then low like the cold air
Wanna keep climbing up
But you forget how you fell from there

Okay it's the last day and I've got to type up some stuff I wrote and then come up with something to finish. I promised 30, and I'm going to follow through, damn it!

27. untitled fragments from a 3 am dream

you said you didn't want to be
part of the universe
as long as i am in it.

there's a map of the states
on the wall but it's all wrong
and we're fighting over who made it.

Spoiler

yeah this one came from 4/26 when I woke up from a dream and apparently felt a pressing need to write down something about it. "It's all wrong" is actually written as "it's all strong" but I'm 99% sure I meant wrong.

Okay so I was trying to make this one long post with all my last lovely poems but of course my computer is crappy and somehow hit the "Back" button and I lost most of what I typed. Ugh. Anyway have another song fragment.

28. Memories

I trip on all these memories in the dark
don't want to keep shining a light on them
don't want to get caught in the past again
'cause I can't put a Band-Aid on my heart
guess I've just gotta play pretend
I'm okay with how things always end

29. Caroline

I say I'm strong
and I won't let you suck me in anymore,
but I'm trapped in caring too damn much
and I see you're heading for the perfect storm.

but you just go la la la
everything is fine
I've got the world under control
(like you're God or something)

You're gambling with your life
Oh Caroline, Caroline
Abusing all your time
Oh Caroline Caroline
You never seem to learn
Oh Caroline Caroline
I hate to have to watch you burn
Oh Caroline

(okay somehow this rant turned into another half-baked song. Yay? And yes this is about the same friend from #15)