"Requirements For Being Human"

A poem comparing happiness before and after addiction... by Sarah G

​What does it mean
when the best days of my life
were spent swirling k-pins around my tongue,
letting my addiction dance in my mouth?
I can’t seem to connect
sobriety to happiness
or at least, 
the kind I had on all those nights
on dirty bathroom floors.
I ripped my skin apart
and filled the empty parts of myself
with synthetic love
and even though the skin grew back
there is a quiet emptiness
that haunts my ribs.
Track marks turned freckles.
I am left with myself
and that’s what scares me.
I was happiest when I couldn’t keep my eyes open
What does that mean?
Strangers gluing their claws to my hips and
whispering into my neck.
There was vomit on my shoes,
There was vomit in my hair.
I am not my addiction
But then what does that make me?
I filled so much of myself with
tiny, white pills
and now I feel like
I don’t meet the bare requirement 
for being a human.
What does that mean?
What did I do to myself?
I’m not free.
I’m not even human