quiet quitting

The too-tight tourniquet tucked around my arm reminds me that it’s all about the blood in the arteries, the stoppage of time, and what it means to be made real. In eighth grade I crept into the kitchen at midnight, drank the last of the milk, then crept back to my room. I held the remains of a bottle of oxycontin in my trembling hands. I didn’t cry. I sat back on my heels and examined the hollowness inside me, found it severe. I didn’t want the life that waited for me on the other side of my bedroom door. The stillness of the night was seeping into the room, suffocating me. Desire is a thing with teeth that latches on and doesn’t let go. I learned when I was twelve, there is no one coming to save you. The bottle of oxy will sit under your pillow for 10 years, and no one will ever know but you. Hope is the biggest secret I’ve ever kept.