This Is How I Am an Addict by Sonia Greenfield

n that each day I cycle through

my textures—waking as flannel

 

until I apply espresso so I become

tweed which wears to a kind

 

of threadbare satin until I apply

one bourbon at bedtime and become

 

flannel again. Sometimes the rocks

glasses build up on the nightstand

 

because I am addicted to always

thinking about something else

 

besides what needs to be done.

And when I say I have named

 

our puppy Benzo, it is short for

Diazepine, because I know pills

 

can cover for me as if I were

a crazed canary in a cage and they

 

were the black curtain to calm me.

And I won’t pick the poppies

 

that grow overdoses because

I know the nausea that follows

 

such easy pleasure. I am addicted

to the way loneliness is being

 

surrounded by all manner of people

I want to kiss but can never

 

figure out how to talk to and to

the pings of social media where

 

I don't have to be clever on cue.

Mostly, though, I am addicted

 

to being in this body, to taking

care, and I know this will kill me,

 

but no faster or slower

than the average dying.

---

Sonia Greenfield was born and raised in Peekskill, New York, and her book, Boy with a Halo at the Farmer's Market, won the 2014 Codhill Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in a variety of places, including in 2010 Best American Poetry, The Antioch Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, The Los Angeles Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Willow Springs. She lives with her husband and son in Hollywood where she edits the Rise Up Review and co-directs the Southern California Poetry Festival.