Train Whistle Blows. Poem by Dakota Ellerton

Without you,
I've managed.
I can stand on my feet,
stagger through the days.
If one can have a muse,
why can't the bottle be mine?
I'm tired.
I don't sleep, I don't feel.
I'm never sober enough,
for my senses to drift back.
I like it that way.
Early morn comes,
and I'm on the floor.
Passed out like a motionless child in a deep sleep.
An intoxicated coma.
Sometimes, I hope to never wake.
Countless times, I almost hadn't.
Choking on my own vomit through the night,
I never enjoyed such a thing.
Disoriented when I wake,
I rub my eyes as if for a moment,
I have no idea who or where, I am.
I've forgotten the night before, and the night before the last.
The last six nights.
One night left to go.
And when I'm drunk,
what do I think of?
Everything, everyone.
You're either happy, or you're not.
There's no in between anymore.
Sometimes I will crave something,
anything, to distract me.
Other times, not at all.
I will stand on the edge looking down on my life,
deciding what my next move will be.
Something always breaks that concentration.
And I do, what mother taught me to do best,
I run.