Back at the hotel, the toilet seat
is cool as a headstone on my arms
my vomit hot on my lips.

I’m grateful no one came back
with me.          The wailing
in my belly says,         More
is coming, but that’s all for tonight.

When I squirm over the mattress
the overhead lighting like an unforgiving
God, I tell myself, Sleep
on your side so you don’t choke on your own
puke.

I remember overcorrecting
my steering wheel, wondering what
swerving into the median would do:               burst me
like a balloon, my body mostly water?

Shoot me like a star, brilliant at last?

I tell myself, Don’t choke, & surprise myself
with this subtle kindness         like a mother’s
gentle hands, feeling for a fever.

Amanda Woodard is a queer poet, essayist, and ghostwriter, as well as an MFA candidate at Antioch University. She studied Social Science and Journalism at the University of North Texas and attended writing workshops at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference and Writing Workshops Dallas. She has been sober from drugs and alcohol since March 24, 2019. Amanda lives in the Dallas Metroplex with her very anxious emotional support dog, Sirius, and her little cat, Young Bernie Sanders.