In My Closet

There's a little glass bottle

gathering dust

on a shelf in my

closet.  The skeletons

keep it hidden,

mostly,

and I'm confident

I'm the only one who knows

it's there,

because I'm the only one

who ever

looks for it.

 

It's nothing special

at least in my mind.

A cylinder filled

with opague blue

green liquid

that only shines

when I hit it with my

flashlight.

 

The glass is chipped and

fading to grey and

ever so slowly

losing all the luster

that made it so attractive.

 

Sometimes I can forget

it's there completely

but it seems I'll

always come back to

stare at it.

 

There's a line

of grime

and a line of time

just below the

cork

that tells of the day

it used to be full

and every time I see it

I remember

 

Exactly how vile it

tasted.  I didn't think to

sip from it first, no,

I gulped

half of it

down in one swallow

 

I didn't realize

 

How addictive it could be

 

And drop by drop

it wrung my heart and shot

fire through my veins

a fire so intense I had to

scream and

shout and

write until my throat and

hands were bloody and

raw and

blue.

 

I still have some scars

some things run too deep

for time

to erase completely

So every time I accidentally

trace a scar

on my hands or on

my mouth, I

remember

the little glass bottle

gathering dust

behind the skeletons

in my closet.

And every time I accidentally

trace a scar

on my

hands or my mouth

 

I want to get rid of the

blue green liquid that

haunts my hands

but I know

I can't just throw it out

I must drink it all

to be completely free.

But I'm afraid

it will burn my hands

or mouth

if I do.

 

So

for now

the grey, unappealing

bottle can gather dust

The bottle and I

we can live with each other

we have to live with each other

I must live with it

because if I really wanted it gone

I would lose my

pen and my voice in the process

and without me

that little glass bottle

wounldn't have a story to tell

and it would burn itself

until the grey became black

and the blue green

would be see

through.