We Are Addicts
20 writers embrace their dialogue
The false, statuesque God of addiction
Sweet Tooth - H. R. Sinclair
It started with the tv
electric vibrancy and frequencies
moving pictures
to capture the attention and
if you’re lucky
the imagination
before it depletes it.
Such harmless fun
with my mum
before school
or after school
or with dinner
or when she was working
or anytime I was home.
A film fanatic in her time
A tv addict in mine.
Time went on and independence grew
and with it my dependence
on the swallowing-screen
available in all sizes
with videos games and
inter-dimensional travel without
having to leave my seat
or stop drinking that can of coke;
an unassuming escape from reality.
An entrance into an alternate
with friends, confidence and achievements.
Time went further
and too much time spent
in ever-darkening rooms
dimmed the light inside.
The false-light’s illumination
no longer hypnotised enough
and help was needed.
The blue light needed green smoke
Double Hit Combo
usually leading to a K.O
The curious boy
obsessed with altering his mental state
and who had seen all the shows
had discovered the holy grail
before any ale
the devils lettuce
mary jane’s make
ready to get baked
into a coma-cake.
A fit of laughs at first
veers vehemently towards
an erosion of self,
a dislocation from desire
dissolving into days
no longer claimed.
This devilish friend was is good to me
He keeps me safe in dark alleys,
even if he brought me here,
brings me peace in times of stress
no need to think anymore
no need to feel anymore
no need to be
when he’s with me
But he lost his strength too.
I have become accustomed
to his emotional comas.
I can talk, move, interact and live
while in them.
That’s no good.
You’re not doing your job.
But another might,
and one night in a pub
with a pint and a sight for something stronger
I was offered the next in the long lineup of things to make living seem real and real seem bearable
something to make the alcohol smoother
something to make the chats better
something to make the nights longer
something to make being an addict
so much easier.
White lines placed
in public toilets
and on plates in microwaves
with notes rolled up and
nothing to talk about except everything.
Hollow conversations with
helpless people
just like myself
waiting to say their line
or sniff their next
whichever comes first,
as long as the noise is
just loud enough
to drown out the bloody noses
and the drink is just strong enough
to black out the memories
just enough to justify the next night.
I’ve never had a sweet tooth
not even as a kid
but I’ve been great friends
with the sugarman
and the sandman
and the hooded man
draped in all black
awaiting my time
watching me accelerate
speeding away from my insides
altering my mind’s eye
clawing for an escape—
he’s whispered his,
but an addict never quits.
Not when the voices don’t either,
the incessant singing
of hateful hymns
inside the hell
that is my god-given mind.
What a sinister thing.
Give me a sickness
and I’ll look for a cure.
It’s so easy to say yes
when they read those
side-effects
so fast.
White, gold, green and blue
the colours of my flag
before claret’s red splatters
and a sprinkle of “surprise baggies”,
the buffet of mysterious makes,
ignorant acceptances and the
million mistakes made,
mdma, pcp, the abcs,
tranquiliser designed for a horse,
gas designed for a hospital.
“Hospital Wall Grey” the colours of my soul.
But life goes on
and jobs get in the way
and the job of working your addiction
around your work
becomes all too much work
and people expect all too much
and it’s far too hard to hide such a heavy one
from loved ones and so I’ll quietly consume
whatever gets me through.
Now my addiction of no-choice
returns to the blue light
the unholy grail
created by mortals
to kill our memory
of our mortality
our existence
our life
spent watching others
play-pretending living
but it’s oh so pleasing
microdosing pleasure
just enough to forget
how good it could really be.
© H. R. Sinclair 2025
Mary-Go-Round - Luis Rosa
She suffered from
undiagnosed love
and kept saying
“Maybe tomorrow?”
yea right
her fix was always
in the future
but truth is
she was addicted
to the past
“Ain’t we all?”
she said
defending
herself
and looking back
I think
she was right
for
we’re all
past-addicts
ain’t we
Mary’s looking
and you and I are
looking
for that
long gone love
LONG
GONE
LOVE
and that translates
into attempts at
reconnection
reinvention
religion
huh
who would have thought
there is more in common
between junkies and
Bible thumpers
than meets
the eye
You go round, Mary
you old elephant soul
let us see
those diamonds
shine
let us look
at ourselves
in those
distant mirrors
and hear the echoes
of our voices
from the carousels
of time
Mary
you’re addicted
to the past
after all
but then again
ain’t we all?
© Luis Rosa 2025
The Black Flower of Death - Kali Fox
I drowned them, the demons that haunted me. I didn’t want to know them. I didn’t want to feel the slashing of their sinister claws, ripping at my soul, and mutilating my mind. They would surely kill me through manipulative strategies and the malicious thoughts that blossomed into a black flower of death, its dark beauty enticing me onto a path of self-destruction. The liquid savior would come, taking power with fraudulent pretense, so I would believe the aptitude was within me to relish life, and take pleasure in a torturous existence. Just one, then two, then more and more until numbness vanquished my pain. Those demons, however, knew how to tread water and survive in the toxic nectar, germinating the evil seeds of those black flowers in every nourishing drink I endowed to them. They were victorious in executing the assassination of my subliminal self, it was my essential nature I drowning. There, at the bottom of each bottle they strengthened in the elixir, mocking my efforts to anaesthetize them. The Savior was not, but a disguised succubus assuming an identity of false colors, false elegance, false bliss, and false hopes.
© Kali Fox-Jirgl 2025
Outside In - Andy Edge
Mirror, mirror on the wall
who's the man I never see at all?
Count the hours. One, two, three, four
sweat-soaked t-shirts on the floor,
protein shakes and macro charts
turning science into art
The gym knows me better than my bed
iron becomes religion, discipline my god
My shoulders are not broad enough
My jawline is not sharp enough
My voice is not deep enough
My silhouette is not me enough
I track progress in millimeters
in new veins appearing across forearms
in the subtle shift of how shirts fit
in strangers' passing glances
The testosterone is magic
but why is it so slow?
I rush ahead to meet it,
push my body past exhaustion
as if muscle could outpace time
Friends text where are you?
Family calls are you okay?
I answer from the gym
(always from the gym)
between sets
between breaths
between becoming
My phone fills with progress pics
side by sides
transformation videos
before and afters
I scroll through them at night instead of sleeping
In dreams I am complete
Therapist says there's more to being a man than your body.
I nod but don't believe him
Some days I think just one more workout
one more month
one more year
then I'll be satisfied
then I'll start living
But the goalposts keep moving
wider lats
bigger traps
I finally have abs!
stronger grip
deeper voice
thicker neck
more, more, more!
Is this dysphoria or dysmorphia?
The line blurs in the locker room mirror
where I compare and despair
Sometimes between reps
I wonder who I would be
if I didn't spend every waking moment
trying to rebuild myself
from the outside in
But then I add another plate
and count. One, two, three…
© Andy Edge 2025
So I Sleep - Jenny Blue Notes
In the spirit of solace I pray to the boy who soothes me sick. Lone boy, with soft whisperings into the slippery drip of my humility. To mellow. My humanity. I have ways to smooth the edges of awful. I have arms to take the weight of veins holding two grams of heaven in one body of earth. I have apologies. I have anomalies. But I’ve no interest in fiction that lies face down in society’s sickness. So I sleep. In mouth of morphia I dream dreams with two eyes alive in closed caption. Comatose. Chosen. Freak flickering from all angles. What’s stranger, I want the world to see my somnolent smile. To them, it’s remorseless waste beneath skin, bathed in overdosed blood. To me, it’s rapture in bed with elation. Making love to myself with continuous pricks in an unmeasured mess. I lie still, as they route their way into the mouth of the mundane. They walk through me, as I drift deeper into the haze of this holy lonely. I’m sorry. For sleeping. But care, for this, I cannot.
© Jenny Blue Notes 2025
Exhale - Edward Swafford
Stratagems of sadness so S-N-A-P
>>>>>>OUT
Shuttered eyes cede, bleed, mesmerize
Halcyons of presently pasts,
Fulcrum futures never to take | shape |
Driving forceful futile forces beyond my
Clandestine comprehension
Karmic kismet, or willed tolling of bells
KNELL can you hear the copacetic cortege?
So break this chain of chagrined command
Simulacrums of surfeit simulations
Sere ideations of second BlEsSiNgS, first,
Susurrus salvation
Fleeting false dawns, STOP/START/STOP
Recast me in reprised roles repeating (!)
<<<<<<ENCORE
Dancing to the beat of the deleterious drum
Binary binaural illusion.
Salving skin in hopes and dovetail dreams
Yet I’m still made of gainsayer glass
Stepping onto m-o-u-n-d-s
Of mortality in mortal perpetuity peering…
DOWN…
Day walking, inner dialogues with my
Demagogue of draconian dearth DeLuSiOn
Regression and ruin, adroit yet ascetic
By choice, it’s always chosen.
Proving groundswells of the felled, feted
EMOTION entropy
Exigent tangents lay and lie in waking fright
Ephemeral pretty peace pales like
Clockwork, tick temerity, tick-tock timorous
The shape of things to come and go
A perfect (circle) of oblique, onerous shame
Entranced with belied beliefs of
“Wellbeing.”
© Edward Swafford 2025
Nicotine Fiend [smoke] - Jozef Cain
The brown tip touches his lip so tenderly. He inhales the blue smoke and exhales euphoria. Outside the restaurant, behind the dumpster with the rats, he kneels at his altar of hedonism. And in the easterly wind, Mary Jane's siren song whispers sweet nothings in his ear. Where, beside her wand, sits a potion waiting for last call.
A pill bottle overturned, half full, on his nightstand rolls back and forth before halting with his worries. He [w]raps trailer park blues and howls with the pitbulls; then clutches frayed blanket edges and shivers into the moonlight.
It's a condition of culture. He's a product of environment. Never pushed for too long, and only muled a couple. Never touched the hard stuff like peers and those meant to be role models. Spent time in traps buying Buddha sacks. He kept to his water pipe. A quiet boy in a loud world. Nicotine fiend.
© Jozef Cain 2025
Scratch - Samantha Lazar
one more opaque film of foil obscurantism a coin between fingers— such a simple tool to feel the tingles of altitude UV dust freckles bare thighs the silver residue of puppet shows strung to make the losers hope tightly bound to scratch impetuous rashes one more winner buys more winners lose and tour Belly-Up Beach after the serotonin tsunami overdosed bodies still guarding their last scratch the sandpipers laugh one more swollen and saturated cardboard perforation clutched between pincers like washed-up crustaceans one more between fan-folded tickets and performance house SUV shadows three-car garage faux vacation balayage what is risk, but the slow demise by drowning debt swimming pool gaslight loss takes a dip into future funds no match but just one more scratch
© Samantha Lazar 2025 - Originally published in Scrittura, and revamped for Black Coffee Poetry.
I Wrote a Four Word Note to Myself in the Psych Ward - Maisie Archer
It wasn’t a suicide attempt, but I couldn’t get the emergency department doctors to believe me.
All I wanted to do was lose more weight, to get below that magic number.
But I was in the psychiatric ward now, initially too sick to protest and afterwards, agreeing to stay because my grandmother asked me to give my mom a break and eat something for once.
It was hard to say no to my grandma.
I walked around with my IV pole and talked with the other patients, most of whom had stories much more interesting than my own. A doctor interrupted us to dismiss the nurse who had been babysitting us in the community room, and gave us an assignment.
“No stabbing, Marco.”
The doctor spoke teasingly, smiling as he pointed at a young man who had knifed himself in the stomach when his girlfriend broke up with him last week. Marco rolled his eyes as the doctor handed us all a page of notebook paper and a pen.
“Lunch in ten.”
A different nurse peeked into the room, where six of us sat on sagging office furniture, balancing our implements on our laps over magazines. The thought of food made my stomach gurgle and my heartbeat roar in my ears.
“Write a letter to yourself, to read when you leave here. No one else needs to see this, and you don’t ever have to actually read it if you don’t want to.”
“This is dumb,” Marco mumbled, shaking his head. I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed.
As I doodled circles, I thought of what was going to be on my lunch plate in ten, nine, eight minutes. Of how I would end up with a feeding tube if I didn’t start eating, but I’d also have to live in my body when I left the hospital, heavier than when I came in.
Heavy things can’t fly.
Everything in my life had narrowed down to this point, to the four words I scribbled on the empty page. Certain that if I didn’t reach the next magic number on the scale, I wouldn’t succeed at . . . what, exactly, I couldn’t remember.
Nothing else mattered but that number, and I didn’t know how to break out of the box I had built around myself. I didn’t know if I wanted to.
I forgot about the folded page after tucking it into my backpack, and when I left the hospital against medical advice a week later, three pounds heavier, I forgot about it.
The words stay in my head, though, as I wrestle with eating disorders off and on for years.
Between moves from one apartment to another, I discover the crumpled note, and the sight of the mantra I haven’t quite forgotten as I grew healthier makes me catch my breath.
That long-ago assignment feels as immediate as it did that dreary morning, although I am no longer that lonely college student, trapped in a vicious cycle of obsession and fear. But she has never been far from me, especially when my weight dips during stressful times and I have to push that deadly coping strategy away.
I find a used envelope in a stack of bills on the kitchen table and take a break from unpacking to think of that young woman, a little girl lost and overwhelmed. What do I wish I had known that day in the psych ward?
© Maisie Archer 2025 - Originally published in Black Bear, and revamped for Black Coffee Poetry.
Temple Lanterns - Rhys
You knew those red temple lanterns Were drawing you inwards Calmly seductive Like an angler fish kind death-filled light And so you half turned, shoulder instead towards the dark and balmy night Where halogen lights from passing cars Pierced the bamboo softness round the path. You carried them with you, those lanterns, a line of softly glowing promises, paper-frail, torn and thin, perhaps cruel. But it ached like a death When they disappeared from view.
© Rhys Mumford 2025
UTAH - Melanie Cole
I remember us, staring up at the stars upon that cliff above Salt Lake City. And it was like we could see the whole damn world. I remember the nights after AA meetings and how our cigarettes were parceled out, and I would always sneak you an extra one of mine. And I wonder how you’re doing these days since we got our matching tattoos. Are you still straight, like you were when we went to breakfast and to the farm? Or are you off somewhere dopesick? You don’t answer my calls anymore, You could never let me down. You could never let me down.
© Melanie Cole 2025
Previous Associations - Laura Catanzano
You lied I fell prey a thirsty beast drawn to a stagnant trough a nocturnal creature hiding behind black nights and blackouts, irreparable damage to intoxicated cells. You sold the secret to superiority and how I drank, drunk on your promises drowning in the prospect of an ethereal existence I don't remember pain then, nor joy. Only blank memories, void of air, inebriated dreams where I was dead. And I was, wasn't I? Coma-swept disturbed nothingness. You told me you loved me. I hated myself enough to believe you. Gagging on regret and sacrificial waste. Still if I'm not careful you try to lure me, to slip in under the guise of friend, false memories of frivolity, but you're phony. You lied to me. And nowI don't associate with liars.
© Laura Catanzano 2025
The Card Counter - Jack A. MacDonald
I wake up at 2pm, shower, brush, clothe, and I’m off to a casino thirty minutes away. at the blackjack tables, I repeat the count in my head. one, one, one, two, two, one, zero, d-one. to my right is a young black man with a gold bracelet who fidgets with a little toy pig no bigger than his thumb. he jumps up “YES!” he just got triple-sevens. to my left is an old native man. seventy, eighty years old. his voice sounds like he’s had the flu for decades. he taps the table. “ok. ok.” hoping for an ace. the pit boss looks at me— a tall man with a big chest. so I turn away from the cards for a moment, until he looks away. the count drops. “I’ll sit out this round,” I tell the dealer. the black man and the native man shake their heads. “why don’t you play?” says the black man. “he’s killing the table,” says the other. they’ve turned against me but I don’t shake my head nor explain to them how stupid it all is. there’s just no use in that so I just stare at the tv hanging from the ceiling, pretending to be interested. but I watch the cards, and the dealer gets twenty-one, and everyone throws their hands in the air. the count is up. I jump back in. “son of a bitch!” says a middle-aged white woman. I wish we could’ve been friends. after losing three-thousand dollars in five hours I cash out whatever I have left and walk out into the breezy hotel parking-lot. I parked far away. I walk across the grass and the cool wind calms me. back again tomorrow.
© Jack A. MacDonald 2025 
Gravel in My Veins - SirenSkin
it’s sticky syrup down the drain clogging my arteries suffocating my capillaries each breath a chorus of knives mincing my putrid lungs it’s in my tongue in my teeth it’s my skeleton my wriggling skin itchy itchy itchy i want it to stop itching bone on glass screen injection of curated DNA i’m dependent on the dreams dopamine thrush glutamate necrotic the rush of the unseen— validation and belonging this deplorable, wretched thing it’s inside of me a parasitic infection lodged in my brain like a sniper shot gorging myself on lies false promises who keeps track? infection crawling out my ears skull smashed like ceramic little spiders fleeing the depravity they’ll find you like they found me. sleep is a forgotten dream there is no voice inside of me only the urge the urge to consume embody gluttony feast until i cannot breathe my body lays limp a wilted flower on a hearse my future is certain inside my neurons it feasts my memories a casualty gravel in my veins my hands, scrape at the glass that face i see— it’s not mine it’s who i am inside. face ripped off muscles smiling teeth black and rotted a decayed corpse fresh and sweet like cadaverine they bloat and swell become inflated skin green and loose it moves squelches weeps viscous tar made of blood and flesh that’s dead puncture wounds puncture wounds up the arms down to their roots nails splintering shedding their shells breath is ragged the glass fogged my muscles, they twitch the floor warps beneath me a swirl of colours and disease i’m trapped can’t you see? blood curdles out the well spittle drowning me thicker than concrete who i was is buried i wish i could undo it all save them from this hell
© SirenSkin 2025
My Darling, My Dealer - Heather Patton
I undress for it. In the dark. In my head. In the checkout line holding milk. In the pause between sighs. He calls me baby in the voice of my own blood. He says, “One little bet, peach. Just one.” And I let him in like a lover with knives. I press my thighs to the table, hungry in the ritual. The slot machine blushes when I look at it. God, even the scratch-off cards purr now. You think this is about money? About cards and dice and the blinking eyelash lights of Vegas? No. This is about ache. This is about the place between not enough and too much where I live, where I bloom like mold in the corners of restraint. I keep my shame in my purse. I keep my thrill in my throat. My anxiety is a mascara smear, black and curling, saying “do it!” in cursive. I don’t need to win. I need to ignite to hurl myself into the rush, the almost, the savage ache of maybe just one more. The roulette spins, and I spin with it a woman tethered to chaos by a string of receipts and the scent of synthetic hope. Afterwards, I cry in the parking lot with a mouth full of pennies and a smile smeared on like cheap lipstick. I love him. I hate him. I’ll crave him again tomorrow my darling, my dealer, my undoing with a jackpot grin.
© Heather Patton (The Verdant Butterfly) 2025
The Maw of Want - The Dope Doula
The air split open. Colours bled from the walls, and the moon wore my skin like a cloak. I saw my hands floating, a bouquet of fingers petals trembling, longing to touch something real. Inside me, a city burned buildings made of ash and teeth, alleyways slick with echoes. I walked barefoot over my regrets, each step sinking like quicksand sighs. My veins were rivers of smoke, slick with oil and grief, curling around my bones like vines in an abandoned house. I heard my heart coughing, a feral thing scratching at its cage. It grew fangs overnight. I fed it hours, faces, memories watched it chew through clocks, devouring whole rooms of silence. I tried to crawl away, but the floor stretched infinite, a mosaic of shattered mirrors each shard humming with my name. I met my own eyes in the reflection: a ghost marooned in its body, mouth full of sand, tongue tasting of rust and static. I blinked, and the ceiling fell a thousand hands reaching, dragging me back into the hollow. When the sun returned, it found me empty, a shell cradled in its own shadow. The world moved on, but I was still crawling, leaving trails of want on the surface of the sky. I am the echo of my undoing, a whisper tangled in barbed wire, still searching for the door I swallowed when I first said yes.
© The Dope Doula 2025
Al(cohol) - Shay Brené
Sitting in my closet, hidden in the shadows I down a bottle of liquor And then another one Hoping no one notice The stale smell of vodka on my breath From last night's debauchery I lie to my loved ones Sneaking upstairs To my hedonistic dungeon It used to be my haven It used to be my room My closet But the darkness overcame it Flooded by guilt Shame and Disgust Another bottle down I now feel the buzz Obliterated Eradicated I know I'm an addict I went a month without it And then I lapse That feeling You can't get back It eats at me Devouring me to my core Making me more susceptible To harmful, intrusive thoughts An addiction so hard to break What is left of me How much more can I take I do not want to be here I rip my flesh I don't want to live I want to just be And disappear inside me Dissociate so I can numb Drink til I'm delirious I do not exist anymore You have a hold on me, Al I'm Chained to your poison
© Shay Brené 2025
OZYMANDIAS SYNDROME - Steve Elliott
A mad, gleaming city rises out of the desert, rolling dicey dreams and pimping frantic thrills. Its mirthless, merry-go-round of roulette wheels spins endlessly: flat-world planets in frenetic space; a clown show of hysterical surface brilliance, of revolving doors, bravado and bucks. I, however, prefer the cactus lands; the emptiness is consoling; it asks for nothing. But the city’s dollared desolation is in your face, requiring your wallet be open at all times, to worship in cathedrals of non-stop consumption; peopled by tarts and crooks, rich kids from the coast, and ordinary folk from small town prairie vastness. They come to dream, America! and try their luck; everyone itches to break the bank, but most lose, and they know they’ll lose; it is their secret desire. They oil the high rollers with free liquor at the tables, to spend more freely in orgies of fiscal abandon. They have no shame, it's about the game, win or lose, no matter the dollars they squander would feed a thousand starving souls. Come on, bet another grand! Next time, perhaps, you’ll hold a better hand. Slot machines sing and clatter constantly, spewing out rivers of shining coin. All that glitters… How madly addictive it is! How fine the tumbling sound of money! This riot of consuming greed operates 24/7. Why, this is Capitalism Central, honey — the gamblers’ fevered fast-buck heaven. But beneath the noisy gaiety and mighty works an Ozymandias syndrome lurks. One day, when we are cashiered and gone, when the memory of the human us fades, the desert’s hot mouth will consume this place: wind will blow through these defunct arcades; sand will silt up the slots; the wheels will stop, and all these trashy idols will fall and rot, heaped in hushed, eternal silence.
© Steve Elliott 2025
Loose Ends - Wildflower
childhood memories locked up in empty bottles - hidden in the washer the dirty laundry covert elopement - fractured memento saturated by blind spots dark blurs - i never smiled - watching the booze trickling down the sink - a stream of emptiness - fragments of neglect encroachment pain fear - submerged behind unbreachable shields lucent detained - you died in rigor left me hanging on these loose ends
© Mia (wildflower) 2025
I Smoke - Devo Carpenter
I started when I was 12, 51 years of poisoning my body. I have stopped many times once for three years but it always draws me back in. When I was a kid, my Maw used to tell my mom she needed help going to the store. Load me in the car, hand me a Marlboro and say “you looked like you needed one”. My dad smoked two packs a day for 60 years. Doctor told him if he quit it would add two years to his life. “Nah I'm good" was his response. My mom never smoked or drank. She lived to be 93 the last 12 years battling Alzheimer; it is a no win situation. When I was in my 40s and suffering menopause the Doctor said if you quit smoking I will give you hormones. “Nah I'm good.” Lately I have been vaping but e-cigs are unreliable. I ended up spending 45 dollars on my recent trip to NYC for my fix. My constant companion my stress inducer or reliever. Part of me wishes I had the strength to put them down again. Part of me enjoys the solitude and slow curling wisp of smoke that escape my lips. I am one of the few idiots that spend 100s of dollars a month to watch it literally go up in smoke. Will I ever get rid of the nasty habit that is slowly killing me? Nah I’m good. This was written before I got the diagnosis Emphysema My husband has it too, seems like we do everything together I am trying harder now, he quit cold turkey Four days of horror and it was over for him I still sneak around and smoke my teens all over again Will I be like my dad and choose this nasty habit over my life I hope I have the strength to stop My dad also drank 2 fifths of vodka a day So at least I have him beat there
© Devo Carpenter 2025The fear, and flame, of recovery
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