Deliberation on Survival

It's not as late as usual,
we sit in the car, leave it running,
wish I was running away
from you and everything i feel
about this education and the money that i need to make--

we leave the car running, the headlights on the bushes
and I heave my exhaustion out through snot in my nose,
desperate addiction, needing alcohol through my tears,
saying anything that might make sense to myself
because goddamnit, it hurts
and i'm embarrassed that I need alcohol to sort out
my life
/life--
don't understand why battles are all uphill,
i don't mind battles,
can't they be on a flat field?
I'll throw the fucking flag at the top,
take a few bullets,
come skidding down dead bodies--
we all fought, some lived,
I keep living,
I just keep breathing,
I'm the one who is still here
every.
time.
and it's getting to be too much
on evenings like this--
needing thirteen gulps of divinity,
gulps of air, I am trying to tread water--

and you listen so well, baby.

which makes it worse,
I begin to rant and sort and write unecessary poems

so humiliating to be this human in front of you,
such a stab in the gut to feel this alive,

once I could suppress it,
anymore it burgeons from me,
fat from a wound,
oh it's so desperate,

fat from a goddamn wound.

there are times when feeling alive are intolerable,
times when I prefer to feel invisible,
a sweet ghastly idea,
times when being dead seem the most appropriate--

but I always make it out of that battle,
and each fight I realize that the odds are against me,
so I'm waiting for it to end,

knowing I've always been the exception'
"Good woman, Beth Smith"
isn't always the cheerful greeting others think it is,
I might look at you in shock
realizing I've come away from it,
still bleeding red, pissing yellow-
conscious, and irate.