Tramadol - Xerxes

Here’s an ode to the things we can’t control, and how they take hold of us.

Like fuel to our lust, gasoline in our guts, touch a spark and let the flames

grow;

If I tried to describe it, would you understand?

Or would you feign sympathy and wait for it to pass?

I never asked for this, maybe it’s what I deserve

Too weak to control it, left only to purge.

You never saw its true face, so you couldn’t see the fatigue.

Not so much that I needed sleep, just how some things make you weak,

so you don’t

notice the blood until the knife is twisting.

But I recall in the emergency room, with the curtains pulled, how you said you

knew,

but you stopped;

and I don’t need an answer for why, I guess you learned not to

cry,

my pain taught you to cut yourself off.

If I tried to describe it, would you understand?

Or would you feign sympathy and

wait for it to pass?

I never asked for this, I guess it’s what I deserve,

too weak

to control it, left only to purge.

But I can’t, and it hurts.

First it’s clear, still cold in my throat.

Then my lips,

then it’s black, like spitting up smoke from the fires in my lungs.

Then it comes,

and it’s thick and it’s red, and it comes and it doesn’t stop, my insides all

cut up and bleeding

out;

that’s how it feels, that’s what it’s like to give up.

And I’ve been

giving up,

it’s like I’m hardly alive;

trudging through nothing to the other side.

There’s no

point;

I’m sick of trying.