Addiction as Ecotone - Part 8 - Brent Goodman

White Crosses - Brent Goodman
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mouthful swallow bitter chalk
not all the pills go down
muffled dusty plastic bottle rattles
tugging off over-handed grunt

not all the pills go down
gravel endless mind spark nausea
tugging off over-handed grunt
neighbors aiming binoculars

gravel endless mind spark nausea
smoke lighting smoke
neighbors aiming binoculars
skin vibrates into invisible

smoke lighting smoke
bleeding-eyed up all night
skin vibrates into invisible
puke-blue birthday cake

bleeding-eyed up all night
stop talking stop talking
puke-blue birthday cake
ingrown splinters under nail

stop talking stop talking
pinhole camera piercing drywall
ingrown splinters under nail
cockring hardon aching

pinhole camera piercing drywall
3 days sleepless 4 nights gone
cockring aching hardon
truck stop teen teller's stares

3 days sleepless 4 nights gone
muffled dusty plastic bottle rattles
truck stop teen teller's stares
mouthful swallow bitter chalk

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Brent Goodman lives and writes in northern Wisconsin. Most recently his poems have appeared in Court Green, Anti -, Rattle, Pebble Lake Review and elsewhere.
Regarding "White Crosses," which is a pantoum, Brent says: "White Crosses" was my first attempt to capture the years I spent trapped inside a living pantoum, doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. Instead living in a world of increasing contradictions between ecstasy and exhaustion, paranoia and exhibitionism, desire and impossibility. I think all addictions lead to the ultimate contradiction between life and death, and recovery is the decision to choose to claw your way out of that vortex before it is no longer your own choice.