words

i fear that i have grown too accustomed
to the feeling that it produces,
the momentary numbing effect on the brain
and therefore on this terrible mind;
it slows me down to right around
where i need to be in order to relax
and just exist for a brief moment.

now on nights when i cannot indulge,
i find myself reeling–
not as powerful as the ghosts of my love affairs,
but equally as controlling,
in a sense, as it becomes difficult to release,
to return to that previous state of comfort,
where i needed nothing
and no one but my own company
to understand the finer points of this.

i’ve become conjoined with the effect it can produce
and so i experience phantom pains at its departure,
not enough to lay me down or lift me up
but enough to feel the difference
of standing in-between those ends,
looking both ways for a signal
that will ultimately bring me home.

i have become human once more
and it will likely end soon,
i will return to a more animalistic approach
of living and dying each day
by this genetic calling card
of digging through the layers of my neuroses
for some clue to this.

or maybe i will continue to dive deeper in to the well,
keep having these intoxicating nights of leisure
and momentary thoughts of what if,
what if the words stop coming,
who will i be and what will i do?
tomorrow night i’ll ask myself again
and once again, i will neglect to answer,
i will expel legions of smoke
into whatever room i find myself in
and i will watch it gather
under the light of the television
or the moon, or in the reflection
of some woman’s eyes
and i will command my army
to invade the thoughts of others
and when the night is done,
i will then reflect for a brief moment
before it takes me back home
with rapid eye movement and mental projections.

-S.C. Martinez