🐈‍⬛6 September 2024 🖤 Poem by James McLain

the day started like any other
sun burning the sky like a busted cigarette,
I walked down the street
with my pills in my pocket,
like loose change,
trying to keep my head straight
and my nerves in check.

safe harbor was the plan,
but nothing's ever safe,
not when you're broken
and shaking like a leaf
in the breeze of some sad song.
they said, 'toss it all out,
your meds, your dignity, '
as if survival was a sin,
as if breathing needed a permit.

they pointed to the jail,
said, 'you could end up there, '
and I thought: haven't I been there
a thousand times before?
not behind bars,
but locked up in my own head,
dragging this tired body
from place to place.

my speech slurred like a drunkard's,
and I wondered if they noticed
how much the world was slipping.
I shook like a man at the end of his rope,
a rope I couldn't afford,
just like I couldn't afford
the Best Western they sent me to,
four walls of beige nothingness,
where silence screams the loudest
and dreams bleed out in the sheets.

this world is cold, man,
and some days you're just a stray dog,
kicked to the curb
for wanting a place to lay your bones.