GRIEF Poem: the bottle of memories, by Jackson Haught

I don’t remember exactly when the killing stopped feeling like a choice. But I know when it started to feel like something else—a need. A hunger that gnawed at me from the inside, made me crave the rush of power, the silence of a life slipping away in my hands. The first time, I thought I’d be sick. I wasn’t. I was alive in a way I hadn’t been before, alive in a way I couldn’t explain, like I had tapped into something beyond me. Something primal.

It’s been years since I put down the knife. I don’t miss it. Not really. It doesn’t haunt me the way the faces of the ones I took still do. Sometimes, I can feel them, hovering just out of sight, like shadows pressing in from every angle, waiting for me to remember the way I used to be. The bottle’s my friend now. Or maybe it’s my enemy. Hell, I don’t know. I just know it’s there when the memories come back, when the ghosts start knocking.

My hands shake, and I reach for the whiskey bottle on the counter. It’s become automatic—pouring, swallowing, numbing. I don’t need to think about it anymore. At first, I had to remind myself. “Just one,”
I’d tell myself. But that was a lie. I never kept it to one. One turned into three, three into ten, until the
empty bottles piled up around me like the bodies I used to leave behind. They’re not in the woods anymore, but they’re still here. Inside me. Always.

I sit back on the couch, leaning into the cushions like they’re the only thing holding me up, my head spinning from the latest round. I used to think I could outrun it. But you don’t outrun your own mind. You just drown it.

Clink.

That’s the sound of the glass hitting the table, the cold bite of it sinking into my skin. I look down at the
amber liquid, watching it swirl like it’s a tiny world of its own, like if I stare at it long enough, it’ll swallow me whole. I don’t mind that idea. Hell, I’d welcome it at this point.

There was a time—God, I don’t even know how long ago it was—when I thought I could stop. That I could walk away from it all. But the thing about killing, the thing about taking a life, is that it changes you. It leaves a mark. And marks, they don’t fade. No matter how many years go by, no matter how many bottles you drink, they’re still there. The marks are always there.

I push the thought away as I take another drink. A deep one. The burn is familiar, comforting in its owntwisted way. It dulls the edge. It slows my thoughts. When I’m drunk enough, I can forget. Forget the
faces, forget the screams that still echo in my head when I wake up in the middle of the night, drenched
in sweat.

Sometimes, I wonder if it was worth it. The killing, I mean. Sometimes, when the booze is doing its job, I convince myself it was. It made me feel alive. In a world full of people who were just… existing, I had the
power to take it all away. The control. It was intoxicating. But now, years later, I’m just… here. Alone.
There’s no more thrill. There’s no more power. Just the endless cycle of emptiness, of pouring another drink, and then another, trying to fill the hollow where something used to be. I can’t even remember what it was. Maybe it was a soul. Maybe it was the person I used to be before I did all those things. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The clock ticks in the background, every second another reminder of how long I’ve been running from myself. Of how long I’ve been hiding from the person I became, the monster I forged out of my own need for something… more.

The whiskey starts to wear off, and the shadows come back, the faces creeping in at the edge of my vision. I close my eyes, trying to block them out. But they won’t go away. They never do. I pick up the bottle again, feeling the cool glass in my hand like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to something real. It’s too much to bear sober. So, I drink. One more time. Maybe this time will be the one where I finally forget. But who am I kidding?I’ve been drinking to forget for years. And I’m still the same man I was when I started. A killer.A coward. And no matter how much I pour, I can never wash that away.