Anniversary Poem for Renee

"Half-Life"

What's the half-life on regret?
Or is it immortal?
Certain metals become rusted
when they receive too much
oxygen and water, meaning
that what we require for life
also erodes something else
Have we considered this science?
I require the oxygen to breath
and that fills me with life but
what is being eroded?
I dared to breath so I could
share words while you laughed
While we laughed
Remember?
Then you were gone and I needed
to breath in more and more oxygen
as I felt like I was losing the ability
to live, with storms in my eyes
the extra O2 rusted away what
was left for me to love you
But I do regret
It's the only metal left

Complicated and Carbonated: A Story of Addiction

The hardest thing I do every day is wake up and not drink soda. I can’t imagine anything more difficult. Every morning my tongue desires the tingle of carbonation as it seductively rises in the glass like a fleet of hot air balloons waiting to take me to a new and grand destination. 

But I must resist the urge. Every single day.

I must.

For the sugar content is too high and the breakouts are unbearable on my skin. It’s too hard to date when your face looks like pizza toppings. Even when the scintillating flavors entice my palate with notes of cherry, vanilla, or regular flavor, I must keep away. Sometimes I even feel crushed by the weight as I cry out for a doctor with my eyes becoming a mountain of dew.

I realize why people have Coke.

To be refreshed. To feel alive. To make you feel like your life doesn’t have to be one big diet. You can experience the full flavor, be your own sprite, magical and wondrous rolling through a Sierra mist as the fizz becomes an eruption, shaken before it stirs you.

However, when those thoughts hit me, I have to call a “code red” so I can keep my mind in check. It’s so easy to ruin my life with high fructose goodness and yet so hard to stop. So tasty. So refreshing. I think of soda with every movie I see. Every game attended. The desire will never escape me. My addiction is never ending.

Even not having soda effects my everyday life. I’m more cranky now with no caffeine for pep. Seeing clear is harder now, my work fraught with missteps. I try to repair relationships I gave up, girlfriends who couldn’t handle my all night binges. Cans painted across the floor, Cheetos on my chest and Pepsi dripping from the lips. Most of my family disowned me as I'd show up to reunions bursting with energy. I'd run around the park shelters and once my antics caused me to knock over a grill and burn my uncle's foot with hot coals. He had to wear flip-flops for weeks because of the second degree burns.

I hope they understand now that soda is just a dark part of me. An evil spread by corporations that I fell into due to creative commercials and attractive women holding aluminum.

It’s not my fault.

It’s just that soda is so accessible and cheap and makes me feel like staring at a sunset with friends and girls in bikinis. I’m an innocent victim in the game of capitalism.

At least I’m not like my cousin.

He’s an heroin addict.

And an asshole.