I was clean for a couple months, I'm not really sure how long, I stopped counting on things a while ago.
I'm not talking about drinking, *** or drugs, as i continue to indulge myself in those pleasures, but to a limit. I've never been one to lose myself at the bottom of a beer glass, or let ***** slink down my throat, although I do enjoy the feeling of warmth on my skin, it's soothing, for a change.
Alcohol is a reminder of him, No not a  break up or lost lover, I  wish it was as painless as that. It is more about abuse. The emotional and physical torture of him, how he laughed as his words slurred almost as quickly as my life faded and self harm became a sinister escape from this dooming thing we call, reality.
I thought I was okay. The doctors said I was, that's why they let me leave on the condition of pills but I felt useless having to rely on a smile in a bottle to make me feel, nothing, because I felt too much, at least that's what the nurses said. They wanted me to feel numb, so I did. I let the colour from my paintings disappear with salty tears and the dance in my soul snap,
I became grey in a black and white world, I didn't belong in.
So I stopped taking them and maybe that was the critical error in this sequence, but it felt so good to breathe for once. I could feel crisp air in my blackening lungs and as oxygen seeped it's way through my wilting body, I began to grow petals.
Only I'm not a flower nor a beauty, quite frankly I see myself as the opposite. I'm more like the watering can that feeds my friends and those around me, I guess I cut pieces of me apart in order to give it to others but that's what feeling alone does to you.

It's taken six years and a lifetime of strength to battle these demons that use my happiness to feed on. I pushed away the feelings of before, I tried to ignore, but I failed. I was told to reach out to someone before I let the blades touch me so I tried but I was ignored. Acid tears fell from my dimming blue eyes and without hesitation blades returned and ripped my pale skin, pale in colour and life. I'm told I see beauty in everyone, but never in myself and perhaps that's why the Crimson red looked beautiful on my canvas because there was colour on me. I felt alone and the shiver to my bones but I was found.
Perhaps it's a sign that I should try this living thing, one more time.

The worst thing,
most insidious thing
about trauma
is that
it doesn’t matter what anyone does,
in the end,
everything is,
(must be, has to be)
your fault.

Trauma is
a voice:
you should have known,
you should have done more,
you should have stood up for yourself,
what is wrong with you,
do you want to be miserable,
why did you trust,
don’t you ever learn?

Trauma is
you watching you
watching what you do,
watching what you don’t do,
watching it all go by.

Trauma is
a voice:
do something
do something
do something.

Trauma is
screaming at a pre-taped football game,
expecting a different outcome.

Trauma is
begging the fictional character to not open the door
when there is clearly a killer waiting.

Trauma is
the hole you keep finding yourself in,
whether or not you see it,
maybe you fall in,
maybe you dive in,
it doesn’t make a difference.

Trauma is
painful -
repeated openings of the same wounds,
hitting a bruise again, again, again,
watching the colors change -
but mostly,
it’s an embarrassment.

Trauma is
a voice:
This is fine.
You can’t tell.
This is fine.
You can’t tell.
This is fine.
You can’t tell.

Trauma is
your best kept secret.

Trauma is
the kind of ****** up
that can’t be named,
can’t be explained.

Trauma is
the kind of ****** up
that is too deep to be fixed.

Trauma is
who you are.

When the dark days come
and a man searches
for high ground

like a lost explorer,
a man going nowhere,

a wanderer with no ballad,

a man who dreams
to the beat of the dark
night's drum

playing light
of the moon, yet
out of tune

like the gloom only a poet
feels alone in a cold room.

Drip, Drip, Drip goes the ink from my quill. Splotching the paper as I sit frustrated with myself. Scribble and scratch as the writers block stifles me. I push to find the words but they will not come. I squeeze the pen in frustration only to stain my face with the blood of my trade. I then come to understand how easily the ink can flow and that for their work a poet must sometimes bleed.

As an imperfect creature of like passion to my fellow humans, I proclaim that I am flawed. I proclaim that I like others have imperfect ideals and imperfect thoughts. I declare that my philosophies can evolve and change. I state that my core value of being helpful where I can remains in tact. I state that I am a work in progress, if I will cease to procrastinate. I say that in this life that I can only hope to do better today than yesterday. I proclaim that I will try to bring hope and not misery. I proclaim that we all fall short of our creator, whom ever we believe that to be. I proclaim that in the end, I shall endeavor to tip the scales for the good and not the ill and that is the best I can promise to do.

On my Father's death last night.*

Death of a father. Night of nothing. Morning of less.
Anhedonia. A family like the Walton's on crack.
Drama looms. Not a human feeling in the bunch.
Death a hyena at camp fire's edge. Light goes out.
Step up to the grave. Now you are first in line.
Mortality worm gnaws. No exemptions. Gnaw back.
We are but a moment's sunlight. Some not even.
Only lesson. World goes on. Without us. An instant.
Good morning blues. Blues how do you do.

  ~mce

A sword and a shield, a gun and a knife, my might lies not in any of these things. The strength of my arms and the determination of my will, these things may fail me. The cornerstone of my might and the thing that gives me a foundation set as iron pillars lies in my ability to be of service to others and to give compassion and mercy. Anger, hate and vengeance are easy things to partake in. Loving while you are hated, praying for an enemy while you are reviled. These are testaments to my strength. To seek blood letting is only a last resort. To mend the wounds of those that are afflicted and to render mercy to those who are brought low but not by your hand. This is the mark of that which is my strength.