Unmedicated

 I’m still here after
a month of hot showers
cringing, crouched over my
bloated stomach curdling with
ravenous hunger
that haunts still, in
sticky sweat dreams 
of funfetti cake slices
and wandering off-course
in shadowed forests
to old lovers’ paths
where maybe
I wouldn’t have tread at all
if not for the salts
spicing my blood
making me thirst
making me wake
with a rock on my chest
lungs sore with the aftermath
of cry-heaving in the dark

it was just another Tuesday
when at last, I rose lightly
sun-dappled, hydrated, dizzy
my shaking body, shaking brain
finally still, having purged
the last of it from my veins
and after running in all these circles
damn, the world looks the same