Heirloom Poem by Chase Gagnon

After your death
I'm rummaging through the drawers
for your bottle of Vicodin
hoping your ghost
isn't watching.

Why can I never stay clean?
Is it because I'm weak?
I see myself like your husband
in 20 years
a tired young drunk
sick of feeling old,
who died before his grandchildren
were even born.

I hear footsteps in the kitchen
and wonder if it's you
hiding them from me —
but I hear lots of things
when the floor beneath me
crumbles
and I'm left dangling
from my barbed sanity
with bloody hands.

I swore I'd keep it locked away,
this heirloom of addiction,
but right now I need to hold it
and feel it
because I miss you
and I'm not strong enough to accept the fact
that you're gone
just yet.

So far this is the only moment
I've told myself you're not here,
when I find and swallow the last
three pills
that couldn't stop your pain,
then wash them down with gin
that wasn't enough
to stop mine.