Jake Newland's "Worthlessness" is a short, raw plea from someone who feels they have wasted their life. The speaker asks to be "bleed[ed] dry / of vodka blood," a striking image that suggests drinking has become so central that it runs through their veins. Draining it away sounds like both a wish for punishment and a wish to be cleansed.
The reason follows in the next lines: once the alcohol is gone, "failures in / this life / become / obvious." The poem implies that drink has been a kind of cover, numbing the speaker to how far they have fallen short. The broken, one-word lines slow the reading down so that "obvious" lands hard, like a truth that can no longer be dodged.
The ending turns inward. The failures "eat away / at what I really should have been," and the repeated "eat" feels like gnawing guilt. The mood is bleak, self-punishing and full of regret, aimed less at what the speaker is than at who they never became.