Hesitation Marks

You could've just drank whiskey like a smart man Drown your sorrows in enough beer to drown a fish Smoked enough cigarettes to burn your house down Taken a walk Pull up your mask and walk in for the day Listen to the lost and damned wail once more Bite your lip and try not to cry Hide those hesitation marks from everyone you care about A bloody impulse has left you worse off In one short month, you lost everything Burnt every bridge you spent years building And now you're too scared to eat Does it taste as bad as it looks? A 15 minute nap pays for it, you know People dream of it, fight for it, die for it And no one who has it is happy with it You really don't function like you used to The pandemic broke you in ways you don't realize yet It hurts to unlearn 30 years of praise, doesn't it? Do you think the doctor was right? But what good would it be knowing now? It's getting a little late to shift paths meaningfully And much harder now with those wounds of yours You swam from the island a day before the boat saved us Your half-measure hurt more than you realized, huh? Commit or don't; you're stuck with it now When told to sail or sink, you chose to tread And now sharks are nibbling at your legs You must hate that part of town by now Twice now, it's nearly gotten you killed by your own hand And twice you've chosen to live on Unwhole, unclean, unwell, unhappy Are you worried you won't be the same this time next year? As your brain tried so often to hatch from its skull You've lived this hell before, but with a light ahead to guide It's been dark for too long by now Ashen One, hearest thou my voice still?