This Is How I Am an Addict

In 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.

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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.