I Was Not Reckless

I was not a reckless kid.  I was straight A's and Yes ma'am's and Please and Thank you's.  I was soft smiles and gentle hands and manners, always manners.  I was polite and overachieving and good.  I missed out on the rebellion and sour attitude and angst.  
And then I got my first taste of pain.  
And then again and again and again until I was blacked out and bleeding.  
I made it to 16 and then I made the wrong choice about who to give my heart to.  Then I kept giving it to the wrong people.  The wrong guys and the wrong friends and it got broken more times than I can count.  
I had to pull myself out of a pit of tar after that.  I had gotten in so deep, I was up to my neck in bad choices and toxic people and worse feelings.  I'm out of that now, for the most part.  I'm washed and dried and clean and trying to pick the last bits of tar out of my hair and off my skin.  I'm trying to get back to that kid who didn't want to be in the wrong place and I'm not failing.  
But I think the poison I was drinking for a while started an addiction and I'm still dealing with the withdrawals. 
 It grabs me for a second and points me toward the one with dark eyes and begs me to find out if he really tastes like whiskey and cigarettes before I shake it off and go on my way.  It trips me up and I land locking eyes with a sad mirror version of myself and wanting to stick my head under water with him, just for a second before I push myself back to my feet.  It shoves me sideways and I slow down looking at old photographs and trying to come up with a way to put band-aids over the bullet holes they left in me before I drop the picture and walk away.  
I am getting better, but the tar is still there in my lungs sometimes, clouding my judgment and calling to me with a sweet voice.  It begs me to take just a tiny step back, to relive one thing and then, it promises, I can be done.  It asks for just one second of my time, just one kiss on the wrong lips, one word to the wrong person, one more chance for the vultures.  I am getting better, but the temptation is hard to resist.  I try to walk away and I drag my feet, slow, slow, slow.  
And I can never quite get the sickness out of my lungs or the want out of my heart or the curiosity out of my head.