i worry i’m becoming an alcoholic

by Sophia Carroll

The problem is antipsychotics

don’t get me as high as Icarus,

with melting wings and a mouth full of sun.

But it used to come unbidden,

and I miss it, even though it made secrets

tumble out of my guts, and I thought

my bed was a spider once—as in

I knew it wasn’t, but I kept flinching

when I turned around.

Those highs, though—

drink takes me up to a nearby peak

and lets me glimpse them

through the chemical fog. Drink is

the tender button I can hit, like

wiggling a loose tooth—as a kid

I pried them all out with my tongue,

I couldn’t stop it.

The problem is altering consciousness

is a human right, a rite of passage

like sex, like eating—who wants

to be one thing all the time? Linear,

pulled tight as a patient in an MRI,

that coffin box, the palette of my thoughts

reduced to protons, to water.

Now I write at bars instead of cafés,

craving that low buzz, that static

like a raiment of moths,

drowning out doubts that hum this is shit.

I can’t get high but drink gives me

the intimation of it, of this is greatness.

I am a sparkler writing glowing words,

and for that incandescent hour,

it doesn’t matter that I’m burning out,

because I’m burning.

BIO: Sophia Carroll (she/they) is an analytical chemist and writer. Her work appears in wildness, SmokeLong Quarterly, Rust & Moth, and elsewhere. Find her on Substack at Torpor Chamber and on Bluesky @torpor-chamber.bsky.social.