The Point of Tangency

A book of poems on addiction found its way into my hands on the two-year anniversary of my best friend’s death and two days before my first month of sobriety. If you asked me two years ago what I thought wasn’t real, off top I’d say trigonometry and the universe’s ability to speak to people. As it so happens a lot of things you were previously unable to believe start to become crisp and clear when you are disillusioned with the charm of constant inebriation. I was always bad at math. I work at a cash only bar and I still count on my fingers though everyone is so plastered they hardly ever notice or care. I once shit-faced drunk called the person I loved in broad daylight while lying in the grass at Dolores Park to tell them my greatest fear in the whole world is time. Time is such a thing. Time is the essential piece of interpretation. It’s two years ago when I begin counting years backwards. Picture a toddler holding ten fingers in the air, watching their own tiny feelers drop as they stumble over the words ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five…twenty-nine days sober and the numerical pattern of divine timing becomes my ruler. Fear and trust are two sides of the same shitty coin. Plop it into the slot of an old school capsule vending machine and turn the wheel. Hope for a good prize. Have faith in the invisible process. I couldn’t find it in me to trust the person I loved when they briefly loved me back but when they fucked me they would call me good girl and I need to feel good. My homies joke I have a praise kink. I say give me my gold star. One of the last men I had sex with told me to say my own name as he took me from behind. My name is Angel and I am an addict. Give me the stupid coin that says I am thirty days worth of good. I haven’t let go of what no longer holds me, big surprise. I am terrified of last call. Of what happens after I set the final glass down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PBS Said There Is Constant Underlying Static in the Darkness of Space and It Will Never Disappear Entirely, No Matter How Far We Go into the Future

i.

i cradle my cold fingers in
the palm of my hand
while i wait for coffee to brew
squeezing tight one, two, three
until tips go red wanting
them to crack like overfilled
ice cube trays- a satisfying snap
of bonds breaking
untraceable pattern
opaque galaxy

ii.

i search and rescue faces
of people i can’t save in the
popcorn ceiling of a sterile room
when the man says “count”
one         two        three
i press a nurse’s rubber glove
fingers into mine feeling
the sound of spoon scrape
flesh from cantaloupe

i try to crack static in
the space between my braincells
as otis redding starts
singing dad’s favorite song:
sittin’ here resting my bones and
this loneliness won’t leave me alone

iii.

A sleep is a dark room filled with cold fingers.
one                          two                        three
Awake is worse than being both dead and alive.
A body is plastic turned to pieces under the pressure.
       onetwothree         onetwothree         onetwothree
An i waits for god to speak but only hell is there.

iiii.

i cradle my cold fingers in
the palm of my hand
while i wait
.
.
.
trying to imagine
otis, anatomy,
collapsed brain

wondering what miswiring
keeps me floating in the
cosmic microwave background
of what is done

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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