Just once:
She looks at red eyes in the mirror
Heart pounding fast beyond the ticking clock
‘I’ll never do it again’
Just one more vow that’s here and gone…
Another night, another scene,
No meaning to it at all…
It’s so familiar, ‘just one more’
And then she’s gone…
Another morning, another day that’s gone
I have to stop, so useless now…
Like stopping the thoughts in your head…
‘I know why addicts kill themselves’
She said, on all the mornings she’d felt so dead…
Why be here, why go on like this…
And then a few sober days, a few little ways
Of not feeling death so near…
It fucks with her, with her mind, sanity
She hears the sound of the air, the click of 
Clocks, the voices around seem like they’re going to
Crush her head….everything seems so near…
It’s just the toxins talking…why can’t life
Feel like this, in a good way?
Why can’t I hear the butterflies wings expand?
Why can’t I hear the flowers opening?
Just pour another down,
Until she drowns….
Just the people floating by, don’t have to see them
All, the way they ignore, the way they suck you in
Til their blackness becomes yours,
The music can’t take it away, nor
Dancing til your heart gives way…
Just to not be so alone, that’s why she does it…
A pathetic excuse, but hers alone…
A good enough reason, until the day
She stares at red eyes in the mirror,
Knowing it could end, if she’d only change.
-Kim Hunt
9-28-00