In the preschool basement that smells of stale animal crackers and sweat Sabrina leaned back in her chair. She rubbed her eyes but the misery would not subside from them. I pitied the woman nearly to tears, even when she laughed her muscles contorted with anguish, the misery shining through.
I feel so intensely for the boy who relapsed, speaking to the room referring to himself intermittently in the past tense. He has such a reverence for this disease that he has aspects of his life squared away in the event of his untimely departure. He pleads with the room, with the universe "if I don't stay sober I'm going to die. I don't want to die." He repeats the last words, first with a somber tone then as a warning, as though he surrendered within those few moments to becoming nothing more than a horror story. I wish I could shake him out of it, convince him that need not be anything more than a bad dream.
I learned early on we are all in pursuit of our own personal Eden.
I watched on as my brother found his Eden in reading, my sister found hers in art. My step dad found his Eden in my unwilling body, my mother found her's in him staying anyways.
And I found mine in a little white powder, sometimes rocks, nearly gem stones.
Every morning I'd dread the singing of birds, how they'd mark the beginning of a new day and usher dread into my body. Drugs turned out to be a vengeful woman, our lover turned sour. She chewed us up and made a bed your brittle bones. I'm sick of the stinging, the acid spit words, how she stands ahead of the sun and tells me it's night. An anchor of a woman, her barbed wire chain! How she clings to anyone and drags them down just the same.
One day the birds ceased to sing for me. They’d gather at dawn to tease, mock and pry:
“She takes a hostage a year
Now she’s setting them free.
Afraid of both Stockholm syndrome
And of watching them flee.”
We congregate at rock bottom, the **** of the earth in a ******* contest. Sometimes the ground opens up and swallows us whole like a bear trap buried in wildflowers.
I'm ashamed I could step out of my skin like a cheap suit and into another persona. Ashamed I spent years of my life playing dress up. So consumed even I thought I was being myself.
She's woven of angel dust and spider webs. She seduces you into letting you near and makes you her prey. I pull out her vile string that runs through my body. The string that made a marionette of me for years. I spit on it, bury it out back. I say to myself I am not my addiction, but I lost control for years. I was vacant but my body lived on causing hurt. No matter what I do I still have the catches for that string embedded in my skin. Making a marionette of myself is always within reach, all I have to do is dig up the string.