I Miss My Addiction

I miss my addiction

I miss feeding it
Like I'd feed a goldfish
Wondering if I would come home
To find it floating
At the top of the bowl

I miss talking about it like a girlfriend
Who gives me hard problems and hard sex
And I hate the former but need the latter
So I keep her around
And she gives me headaches
From her yelling
During arguments and sex
And sometimes the two are identical

I miss my friends telling me to give her up
I miss finding new friends
People who understand my addiction

I miss my addiction keeping me company at night
Because it used to keep me up at night
Demanding my patience and my creativity
My money and my sanity
The dishes on the wall filled with food
That I wasn't hungry for
I wasn't hungry for anything
But I'd eat everything in sight given a chance

My addiction used to accompany me on trips

I took it on road trips with me across America
While my parents fought in the front seat
I'd take sips in the back
Out of a thermos with ninja turtles on it

They thought I was having trouble letting go of my childhood
I was actually having trouble letting go of coherency
But after awhile, I managed

I took my addiction to Europe in college
Where it went from an obsessive hobby
To a compulsion with a stronghold
In all facets of my life
And tucked away neatly in my suitcase
Next to my deodorant and toothbrush
Waiting to be removed

I took my addiction to Ohio
To Idaho
To Seattle
To D.C.
To Dublin
To Belgium
And finally to New York

Where it lived with me happily
In a bubble of chaos, Ritz crackers, and cognac bottles
Filled with stuff cheaper than cognac
Could have been paint thinner
I drank it happily
While girls floated in and out
Complaining about my lack of motivation
My inability to invest in them
But my overall devotion to my music
And my addiction

I miss silent movies on VHS tapes
That seemed downright brilliant
When viewed through a haze
Not supplied by sobriety

I miss Chinese cartons filled with surprises
Melrose Place reruns on the television
A cat that loved me unconditionally on the rug
No sheets on the mattress
Books everywhere
Piled up in stacks
Good fiction on cookbooks on bad memoirs
And an addiction laughing at the mess I was
But never once judging me for it

I miss bottles with change in them
Saving up enough to buy my baby a present
And a present for her was a present for me
I'd buy her a Friday night
Out on the town
With friends and girls
And she never got jealous
We used to threeway, fourway, whatever way we could get it
We got it
And then it was just me and her
When the morning sun hit
And she never looked bad laying next to me
But she would take more than she could ever give back

And when that got to be too much
I told her to take off
And she fought it and fought hard
But in the end, I won

Although I wish someone would tell me
How it's winning
When you wind up feeling lost
At a loss
Miserable and aching
For the pain you understood
Rather than this new thing that feels like nothing
Nothing and sure that nothing but your addiction can cure it

I miss the funny guy who used to have a thousand anecdotes
None of them being about how he's proud of himself
For waking up everyday
And remembering the three things he gave himself to do the night before

I miss the party guy who could get girls to give him their numbers
And he'd remember them but not always in order
So he'd call other girls instead
Strange girls
And they'd come over
And meet his addiction
And say "It's huge"
Say "It's vast"
"It's strong"

And always
"I don't know if I can handle it."

Nobody could

I miss the man who in every photo had a drink in his hand
And a smile on his face, and a friend on his arm

I miss the man who broke into his ex-girlfriend's apartment
Ransacking it for photos of her with a new guy, any guy
While his addiction played look-out

I miss the man who thought fear and quitting were the same thing
I miss the man who could play his guitar better than anybody on the fucking planet
And now sounds like a cheap knock-off of a half-ass wannabe on a broken record

Today I wrote a song about my heart
Being broken like a vase
Broken like a vase
Like a vase
Would that ever sound anything other than pathetic?

My addiction would mock me if it read my new lyrics
It would crawl on top of me
Pour itself back into me, directly infecting me
With non-stop inspiration
Until I wailed and in doing so woke the neighbors
Who'd tell me to play my fucking music during daytime hours

I miss everything about my addiction

People tell you that you'll be better
You won't
They'll say you'll feel great
You'll feel like shit
They say one day at a time
I say every day feels like the first day

And the only reason I don't call my baby up
The only reason I don't beg her to come back
Is a little photo of my other baby
The one that left when the addiction wouldn't
And the only person I miss more than the cravings

I look at that photo
And I pray for relief
When it doesn't come
I get back into bed
Shake and shake
Like another form of praying
Praying for myself
For the girl in the photo
And the addiction outside the door

Waiting to be let in again

Not knowing I'm going out the window
Down the fire escape
And that I'm gone
That her man is never coming back