feeling your own warm blood dripping down your arms
coating them in a thick red layer of war paint
was not enough to make you put down the razor blade

tubes shoved down your throat by masked strangers in scrubs,
bile rejecting your stomach and exploding through your mouth with fervor
was not enough to make you put down the bottle

fainting in a public bathroom,
being rushed to the hospital where nurses would spend weeks trying to feed you through a tube
was not enough to make you stop starving yourself

because addiction is not finite
there is no limit to the abuse you will put yourself through
there is no maximum level of suffering you will tolerate before it all becomes too much to keep up with

addiction is not a choice

she does not want to have the tally marks of a prisoner etched into her arms,
or cirrhosis of the liver.
she's only 16 years old,
her hips shouldn't jut out and stretch her yellowing skin, but it does.

and this is addiction.