Suck and Swallow

Lollipop sticks pile up looking like unsmoked cigarettes
When I can’t get a fix.
Being unemployed sets way too many limits
Lips, tongue, teeth painted lemon, grape, peach.
Sweet sticky substitute for a nicotine hit.

One pill.
Some days, two pills.
I’ve got brown plastic bottles in my purse, in boxes, in drawers, on shelves.
Some of them empty, some of them filled.
Much better now than asking friends
for crumbs I could score.
Now I’m pouring out dollars to doctors
when my lungs get sore.
But I’ve lost ten pounds
Since I kicked my four to six beer
nightcap—self medication
habit.

The suffocation and the nightmares come less often.
My hands still shake like I’m jacked up on caffeine—or withdrawing from worse.

I used to be a whore.
(I’m not drunk until I’m making out with somebody.)
Getting fucked, not looking for love, just someone to hold on to. Someone to distract me; get me a whiskey when I couldn’t breathe.
Standing in line for condoms, plan b, ginger ale
Or to get tested for HIV.

But he changed all that.
Hitting me in an elevator, with his tool kit.
Taking me out for a coffee—dinner--drinks apology.

Now I sleep in a bed.
His bed. Our bed.
One year later, I sleep through the night, in a bed.
Something that hasn’t happened since I was a kid.
Not eating peanut butter out of the jar for weeks on end; subsisting on coffee, whiskey and cigarettes.

I go to the doctor.
I take my pills;
Take a shower, without falling over.
Eat dinner, more often than not. Real food, real meals. I remember how to cook again.
Fall asleep instead of blacking out; wake up without a hangover.
Wake up under covers; under arms instead of on my couch or someone else’s floor.
He proposes in his sleep
Once a month.
He talks about our some-day kids when he’s drunk.

He lights my cigarettes; splitting a pack when I’m too broke to buy my own.
No more whoring;
No more scoring.

Just me, my pills and my boyfriend.