i am holding myself together, two hands wrapped around a mess of raw and bloody meat. my dependencies rise like so many maggot children from the spoils of my guts, feasting on the decay and every declaration that i am sane, or safe, or sober. i entrench straitlaced behavior into all of my interactions, cinch artificial boning up tight around the stack of compromises that i am, but there is no corralling the sweet slop. wrecked, i am holding myself together, but in my grip the marrow slides out of the bones, and the rot is my gradual destruction.