One day, I’ll get the call.
The one that changes me.
The one that buries itself deep
where no one else can see.
It’ll sound like every other tone—
a number, a street,
a reason to run.
But something in it will stay.

Because I know what’s waiting —
the wreckage of someone’s worst day,
blood that won’t stop,
eyes that beg,
lungs that won’t fill.

I’ve learned
how to stay calm
when the world is ending,
how to press my hands to a chest
like it’s just muscle and bone —
not someone’s son,
not someone’s mother.

You’re trained to move fast,
To do with purpose
To act without hesitation,
But there’s no class for the quiet moments—
The ones where you sit in the silence
After the sirens fade,
And the weight of a life
You couldn’t save
Settles into your chest

There’s no lesson in the long drives
Back to an empty house,
When your heart still beats
In the rhythm of the chaos you left behind.
No one talks about the emptiness
That fills the spaces
When the adrenaline fades away
And you’re left with only yourself
To make sense of the mess.

They don’t teach you how to breathe
through someone else’s panic,
how to hold space
for a mother’s screams
and still remember protocol.

They don’t prepare you
for how heavy the air gets
when no one says it yet,
but everyone knows—
It’s time to call it.

I know this.
I’ve always known this.
You don’t do this work
and pretend you walk away untouched.

But sometimes,
being there for someone’s worst moment
is the most human thing we can do.
And I’d rather be changed
than never have offered a steady hand
when the world fell apart.

Not because I’m fearless—
but because I care.

And caring is worth the weight.

The first time,
You felt warm—
like hands on my shoulders
pulling me out
of my own mind.

You offered escape
in a form I could swallow.
You didn’t ask questions.
Didn’t care why I hurt.
You just promised I wouldn’t feel it.

And I believed you.

I let you in.
Again and again.
Until I forgot how to live
without you.

You were the only thing
that ever made it stop—
the noise,
the ache,
the weight of being me.
One hit,
and the world melted
into something I could finally survive.

I watched my life shrink,
choice by choice,
until all that was left
was the next high,
the next lie,
the next hollow nod toward nothing.

And when I ran out of money,
you ran out of mercy.
You left me alone
Empty
broken,
with no one but myself
and the thought of ending it all.

But the money ran out
long before the cravings did.
Withdrawals don’t care
about bank accounts
or promises.
They come like fire—
bones screaming,
skin crawling,
begging for your relief
in any form.

And so I did
what I swore I never would.

I laid down my worth
like loose change
and let strangers take what they wanted
in exchange for a high
that never lasted long enough
to forget what I’d done.

It didn’t feel like choice.
It felt like drowning,
like grabbing any hand I could
even if it pulled me deeper.

That was my rock bottom.
Not some dramatic fall—
just the quiet realization
that I had survived you

And somehow,
in the ruins,
I reached for help
instead of you.

Treatment didn’t fix me—
but it planted something
where you used to live:
hope.

Five years without you.

I clawed back from the edge
of the grave you dug for me.
I faced the rage you left behind,
the shame, the scars, the debt
you demanded in every breath.

And here’s the final blow:
I’m a paramedic now.
Despite the odds.
Despite your vendetta.
Despite the nights you tried to **** me.

I wear a uniform,
not to hide my past,
but to prove I survived it.
I carry Narcan on my back  
and hope in my hands.
I race into chaos
to save the ones you nearly stole—
because I know how precious
one more heartbeat can be.

I see your shadow in every overdose call,
in every lifeless face
I try to pull back from the dark.
You sit in the corner
while I force oxygen into their lungs
And push Narcan into their veins
smirking like the devil I once knew.
And I always say a big ******* I my head
When we get them back

Because you tried to **** me—
but I became a lifeline.

You almost had me.
But almost doesn’t count.

I’m still here.
And I am everything
you said I’d never be.

here's a grief no one talks about - the kind where the person you're mourning is still breathing.
Still walking around
laughing in rooms you'll never be invited into.
I lost you slowly.
Not to death, but to a choice -
one you made over and over again until it wasn't a choice anymore, just who you became.
You picked her.
Her voice over mine.
Her comfort over my childhood.
Her hands that never learned softness
against the daughter who only ever wanted yours.
And I learned, early, how to make myself smaller in the hopes you'd notice the space I left behind.
I learned how to swallow words like "Dad, why don't you fight for me?" until they tasted like nothing…
And when the world became too heavy, when the ghosts of my past clawed at my skin, I made myself bleed quietly in the corners of rooms you never thought to check.
I swallowed pills like prayers,
chased highs like they could rewrite the past, and still, you never noticed.
I grieve the father I-imagined when I was too young to know better.
The one who would have stayed.
The one who would have looked at me like I was something worth keeping.
Sometime I wish you had died
Because grief makes more sense when there's a funeral, when there's a body to bury, when love can sit at a graveside and say its goodbyes.
But there is no grave, just silence.
Just the knowledge that you are somewhere, living a life that does not include me.
You taught me what it means to be replaceable.
To watch a man
who held your tiny body once, turn away
because someone else made him cho
You chose her.
I tried to convince myself that wasn't the end - but it was.
Maybe not all at once, but in a thousand quiet ways
And the worst part is - I still miss you.
I still wonder if you think of me when the house is too quiet and she's not looking.
I wonder if my name still tastes like guilt when it crosses your mind
now you're just a stranger I share a last name with, a ghost
haunting the places in me that still ache for a father
I will never have.