TBSTHEBT in nch_inpatient_692015

big martin is the kind of
person who gets genuinely
jazzed about everything

it is not a bullying situation
or anything like that it is just
that when he asks you for

your story you cannot help
but tell him because you
firmly believe that yours

is The Best Story That Has
Ever Been Told so i tell my
story - i got passed over

for a job for which i am
undeniably qualified
it so happens that it was

also the last day of the school
year so like the shanekill
butchers who drank their

whiskey by the pint, I found
the largest mason jar in the
house and attempted to drink

myself to death that’s it
it is not that exciting i fucked
up, and my biggest regret is

that my kids were around to
witness it big martin crosses
his arms and nods, in fact i

notice that nodding is the
‘aloha’ of this group encompassing
multiple contexts and connotations

christopher is a twenty-year old
polish kid from midlothian who
is on his third week of his third

stay since january – this time
he stopped taking his meds
started drinking fluently and

lost all sense of where he is
in his own narrative he speaks
in self-help slogans genuinely

wishing to work the program
he also admits that this is
probably not his last stay that

he always has a fool-proof
plan for sobriety and self-care
that works until he starts

interacting with other people
after group but before lights out
we are allowed to watch the news

i stand in the back of the common
area unshowered
aware of my own stink

this kid with stringy blond hair
turns to me this ain’t
prison, man i ask what

he means by that–he gestures
towards me–you don’t need to stand
with your back to the wall

nobody is going to mess with
someone your size. now
everyone is looking at me and i take

the empty couch next to the kid and
offer him a graham cracker