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Michelle Leigh

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Sacramento, CA, US

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Help, Only From Me

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Help, Only From Me

by

Michelle Leigh

Smoke rises and its too hard to write with this cigarette stuck between my hungry fingers.
I have been up all-day and all-night and new day, I am up.
I have seen the homeless, the drunks, the ones with stealing fingers and no integrity.
Who run when it comes time for them to own up. All in 24 hours maybe a little more...
Long Long day and I should be tired and I should sleep
You know I would sleep...
I would dream of sleep
I would look at this page and imagine it being the white of my eyes and pencil in the blackness of the night that falls in deep deep dream
I mean I am doing all of that
But I am stuck
I choose this lively death drug that keeps me
Skinny.
Keeps me
Awake
Keeps my tongue thirsty
And never hungry
And only appetite I have
is for the dry ash cigarette between my lips
and the words that crawl out of my sticky spun web of mind
Earlier today when it all began again

it is because I gave in and said what the hell? Gimmy a boost
I want to feel my skin tingle like angels came to massage me and
I want have energy to zip and zing
and make me so elated that I punch the jukebox to number 32 song 09 and sing

James Brown "It a mans world" and yell out "but it wouldn't be nothing without a woman's heart"
And there was a smile on this American Swiss Italian face, yes, did you see it sure,
I was all caught up in the high and everything seemed to blur
but it was a crystal zirconium lie
and couldn't really satisfy my yearning inside
for that real inner happiness that can’t be found in some so called magic crystal ball.
And in all this zombie walking chemically induced glamour
I thought about how the world would be nothing without a woman's heart
My woman heart....
Where did my heart go?
I feel it beating sometimes in a jungle rhythm
and sometimes sporadic like car honks in rush-hour
and I wonder if I am going to die
or if I am already dead stuck alive
Funny.
Not funny enough to laugh
but funny that I can feel my heart
beating against this skin chest but
I can not feel its ember spirit manifest in blush, red against my cheeks in a...

genuine smile.
Spirit heart in exile just left red organ to do its basic pump pump
flow in veins
keep body alive like a empty gift where only wrapping paper remains
After being up all day and night into day I feel I am just lukewarm
barely alive buzzing inside with no energy and this is when I most love to drive at night. Why?
Because I am cold heart machine and I flip the heater in my car and aim it at my feet turn it on full blast while I flash past on the freeway
all windows down, its comfortable cold and hot
and I love the wind in my face freezing my nose like I freeze my nose with blow
And I start to feel like everything is going to be OK
and I can handle the world
as long as I have that good old heater pumpin
and I can still be smokin as I cruise around holdin this trusty cigarette
and i think big thoughts, like,
"So what is my drag per minute, does it compare to my speed?"
No, compares to how much speed is in me but I couldn't even tell u how fast or how many I have smoked in the past 24 plus hours.
Shit I don't even care!
Just suck it down
deep deep deep down
Past my throat and lungs and heart
and stuff all the pain (did I admit to that?)
into some part of me that I cant see and never really use so it won’t come up again
at least for a while
Quick fix is the newest hit single being played on repeat over my speakers in this so-called wonderland
wonder how I long i can continue floating along, so high, so above the ground in a world that
only solid envisioned land walkers can succeed
even though I know this, this bird flight to no where lead, I choose this
cus I am a garden of weeds
Yeah that's right, And this garden is still green and so beautiful and filled with wild colored flowers, you know the kind I'm talking about.
Except beyond the dark side of the leaf that never catches the sun
lies the root that we all know, the root of a weed is what is killing everything in the near vicinity including me
This garden dream could be just as green, more free
but it’s not easy to live
To replace nonchalant candy coated crank gardens with strength and the will of effort
and then I could grow sunflowers.
Roses.
Daffodils
Daisies.
my favorite, daisies.
But it’s not easy
it’s what I could be
and still that part of me is afraid to sleep so I don't have another
yearning dream of this fading fast never grasped reality
seems the only thing sleeping today is the warmth in my heart
and if I could kick start that fire like I rev up my car then I could
perhaps grow my flowers green and bright as the day.
In effort only will it come to be. And only will it come to be if
there is absolute hope of creating some goal that I would die to make a part of me,
With a dream nothing is wrong or too hard or insane.
If I could dream I would easily lie with my eyes closed and lazily watch the movies of my mind
and hope in that rest I could find the key to unlock my inside
So I could build my green house of sweet pea daisies
instead of tumbleweeds.
For now, I am still awake
buzzing around like the velvet coated mustard colored bee
buzzing near the brink of something so big it’s hard to see
barely make out the face of giant when I am one so small
barely make out the heart of this defiant young girl that wants it all
so easy
wants to be skinny
wants to be electric energy awake
and cold
and calculated
with the perfect clean house and car and room and job and boyfriend so no one can see
the face of the giant emptiness within.
So for now
again for now
I will light another one of my lunch/dinner/breakfast all combined in one
cigarettes,
and funnel this snow in my nose and I could never eat again
What a deal!
I could live off of the $5.15 for a pack of marborolo lights, (Lights cus I'm tryin to quit you know)
and it would be a total steal
And I know eventually it will all come to me.
Funny, sad though, is that what I already know, what comes matters on what I give and this quick high will only bring thrills that are short lived
Can’t think of that though.... gotta push it down
down down down
inside.... instinct and common sense push them even further aside.
but ill just take another drag to make me feel alright
It comes in with one breath (and with it comes early death)
but I'm too young to think about that now
how bout when I'm forty and I realized I smoked all of my life away
Every dream, love, hope and goal slowly dragged in and pushed down down down to my feet
Compacted until it was so compacted that I walked with legs heavy as concrete
Still can’t think about it. I need a cigarette, I need a line I need something now fast and quick to make
me feel ok to make me feel fine because I see
I don't want to see but
my life will be a collection of broken promises to myself and my heart and
dreams that never happened because I never went to sleep to have them.
Too stuck on this poor mans high and now I pass the time
Rambling and rambling my thoughts.
They are becoming so unclear
I'm so addicted to this like I am so addicted to that
So I can’t stop that I can’t stop this
I am incessant with words and they don't mean anything just like my life doesn't mean anything right now
I am so sad.