Addiction

“Little Furnace”

They said I was born in winter—

the kind that bites, not whispers.

White outside, but not inside.

Inside, it was always red.

The kind of red that bruises,

that curls into corners,

watching. Waiting.

Becoming me.

I learned silence like a second tongue.

A discipline. A prayer.

Not to a god—

to the ceiling that never blinked.

I lit my first cigarette

like a match to memory,

smoke folding around my mouth

like a lullaby made of nails.

Vodka came later.

She was colder than the house,

but kinder. She never hit.

Only blurred, only blurred.

My breath smells of forgetting.

My hands tremble with the hush

of too many nights pressed flat

beneath the weight of locked doors.

They think I’m whole.

Hair brushed. Smile drawn.

But I am glass.

And I cut myself beautifully