Relapse

My relapse does not look like yours
I do not keep track of my faults
as tallies on my wrist
I do not lay awake at night
thinking of all the things that went wrong
during my day
And I don’t write long letters that I leave on my desk

No, my relapse is a bit different
It is spending $2.17 plus tax everyday
on iced coffee with 5 Splendas and a splash
of what used to be milk but is now shame
It is a quickly hidden look in my eyes
when the food comes out
And it is the quiet response
when you ask if I am hungry

When I relapse it smells faintly
of chewing gum
And it sounds silent
as I hide away in my room
reading as many novels as friends I don’t have

At best, relapse is
the lyrics I wrote on my palm 
that you told me to wipe off
and at its worst it is ‘nausea’
followed by sobbing 
coming from the bathroom

Relapse is when I cancel our plans
and ask you every day 
for the answers to our homework

It is the dark circles under my eyes
that get darker with each extra hour
I sleep

Relapse is when I ignore trigger warnings
and begin to play with the guns
that you have heard children seek
as an ending to their short stories

There will be no noose or gun
hidden in my closet
Relief will be a tight lipped prayer 
as I cross the street too soon 
or maybe
It will be my new prescription of 
Prozac
or Zoloft
or Ritalin
sitting where it was before in the cabinet
But now it is empty
and 30 pills are missing

And you will tell everybody 
there were no warning signs
there was no suicide note
or cries for help
Everything was fine.

You will wonder what went wrong 
and won’t find an answer anywhere you look 
because

sometimes, like in my case,
relapse 
is a more abstract piece of art
that you have to create 
in order to understand