I don't like the wording but it all seems true enough.

Day two of my newly found desire to live
beyond the barstool.
Already the ghosts have come to haunt me.
Their faces are so vivid when
I lack the proper substance
to drown them in oblivion.

Josh.
Casey.
Alice.
And all the other "could have beens"
or
"I wish they had beens" come
cascading down through
actual,
considered,
clarity of
thought.

I, the martyr.
I, the villain.
I, the failure of so many moments
that may have brought the definition of
a better life.

Without blood rushing to my head
it gets so quiet in my little room.
Living with two very kind souls who I fear
know nothing about me at all.
Just that I will play the Jester
for everyone so that
I won't feel so
very alone.

The undercurrent of every day
is this unshakeable dissatisfaction.
Not a melancholia
or great victimized drama.
Just a constant buzz of dissatisfaction.

It really does hurt to try.

To attempt to be more,
do more.
To reach some level where
people begin to expect things
from me.

Like greatness.

That is something I fear more than
the ghosts that visit me.
I don't want to let myself down.

When in the grip of the bottle
I feel absolved from my sins.
But then I impurely awaken
and find them etched all over me.
In my mouth,
on my tongue,
across my arms,
wrists, and chest.
Living testimonies to how I really am
not enough.
I don't have what it takes.

Yet I have always had a talent for destruction.
I can bring everything good in my life
to hopeless ruin
in such a fashion as to amaze.

It burns to realize the years
- years -
I have actually wasted
with self-destruction and
vice.

I wonder what I could have been had I just
actually
tried.

I would never have met her.
He would never have died.
I would never have hurt
even half as much
as I have.

Perhaps the worst part of all this
is that without distraction
the smoke actually burns my lungs and
I can taste the poison.

I am a piece in progress
and hindsight is
a waste of
time.