Ten Years of Tarnish

A former life.

Ten Years of Tarnish

Ten years I spent at the bottom of a glass,
face pressed to the smeared mirror of a life I didn't recognize.
The nights came loose and fast,
cheap perfume staining the hours
with women who never asked my name
until it was time to forget it.

I traded my dignity for dopamine—
each hit, each swallow,
a dimming lightbulb in a hallway lined with grins
that never reached the eyes.
They came with promises carved in smoke,
words that slid off lips like oil,
coating the truth in just enough sweetness
to make me swallow it whole.

They lied—of course they lied—
but I did too.
I lied by staying.
I lied by pretending
I was looking for anything other than oblivion
dressed in low-cut tops
and the echo of my mother’s warnings
I never listened to.

Some stole.
Some stayed just long enough
to wear my skin like a weekend costume,
leaving it stretched and stinking when they were done.
Others just sat there,
mirrors to my rot,
reflecting back the man I was afraid to see—
the kind who could mistake chaos for connection.

I called it love once or twice,
when the loneliness got heavy
and the high wasn’t enough
to drown out the clink of regret.

Ten years.
Ten years of beds I don’t remember
and mornings I do.
The kind that reeked of sour breath
and trashcans,
ashtrays spilling over
like my boundaries.

But don’t get me wrong—
they weren’t all villains.
Some were just broken
in the exact same shape I was.
We fit like wounds stitched together
by the same dirty needle.

Now I sit
cleaner than I was
but never clean enough to forget.
Sobriety doesn’t polish the past.
It just stops me from pretending
it was ever gold.

Ten years of tarnish.
And still, some days,
I catch my own reflection
and think...
Man, that was a lot of skanks!