bottle the first:
pain to ease the pain, burning to ease the searing, shivers to the illusion of warmth. if i had any fucking guts at all i'd take a needle no maybe that wouldn't be enough a scalpel but i don't have a scalpel - exacto knife? and i'd release the pressure. but i cannot bring myself to make the incision into perhaps the worst square centimeter of inflammed tissue ever to exist on my body. pain would ease the pain, but the best pain i can manage at this juncture is seventy proof and burns like peach.
bottle the second:
pain = answer. used to lick my lips too much. chapped cracked sore as hell and unattractive oh yeah fancy ugly, not just plain. insert large stainless steel barbell in tongue. walk out into the night floating on the pain and feel the tongue try to make a move on the lips. denied, courtesy of pain. dear b.f. skinner, you were right about everything, love, me.
there is no third bottle:
they were tiny bottles of course. to be honest i still struggle with bottle the second, i am not the wild irish alcoholic i once was. however who and what i am is mostly the result of various answers involving pain. punishment. rewards i take first undeserving even knowing i will turn on my self after. cycle circles around comes to rest like a knife at the base of the throat, thin line of shimmering red suggesting the worst yet to come. i do not know whether or not i ought to be struggling.
there is another answer. it involves pleasure. i will not ask.
i don't have a point. it's only a toothache.
