Blood you can't afford

They all want something 
a piece of me,
a promise,
a future I can’t keep steady.

Women with open hands
and closed hearts,
asking for money,
for time,
for the man I could’ve been
if the bottle hadn’t carved itself
into my ribs.

Family dreams cracked like pavement 
the kind you trip on
even years later.
A home, a plan, a quiet life…
all turned to smoke
the moment I tried to drink myself
into being strong.

You can’t pour love
from an empty chest,
but they still knock like debt collectors,
as if bleeding myself dry
would suddenly make me whole.

And I try 
God, I try 

to be more than the shake in my hands,
more than the man patching holes
in a ship already sinking.

But some days
it feels like I’m giving blood from a stone,
nothing left inside
but echoes,
alcohol,
and a heart that keeps beating
out of sheer spite.

Still…
somewhere under the bruises,
the noise,
the broken expectations,
there’s a version of me
that refuses to die.

Not for them.
Not for the bottle.
Not for the weight of every woman
demanding salvation
from a man who can barely save himself.

This fight 
it’s not against the world.
It’s against the part of me
that keeps believing
I owe more than I have.

And one day,
I’ll stop bleeding for everyone else
and learn to keep
what little life I’ve got
for me.