Letters from sixteen

Leaves you to rot

A set of late night entries about being left empty.
TW: CSA

Late night ramblings
The dissociation has been so present recently, I feel like life is slipping through my fingers like sand.
I'm not myself, I sit in my favorite places and feel entirely numb.
I don't feel as human as I do a viewer of life passing by.
I thought getting drunk would help, it didn't so I drank more, neither of those things worked.
I don't have words for any of this which aches because I always have words for things, I am a writer after all.
I feel like a ghost.
I don't think my story is unique, there are plenty of ghosts like me that linger, but that doesn't make it any easier.
I watch, I listen, I mimic, but when they pull the sheet off of ms they know we are fundamentally different.

Same story, different books
I love hearing the story of the addict because when the sun sets we are all the same.
I remember the first time I got drunk I drank the next morning.
Each experience after that was very similar.
I would start with half a pill and the next morning they were all gone.
The first time is always the best you've ever felt, maybe I couldn't stop my mouth from hanging open, maybe I've never felt this electric.
So I'd keep looking for this first time, maybe I'd find it a few more times.
I remember I found that perfect high on my fourteenth birthday.
I was riding my bike to school and I realized it was the best I'd ever felt.
I continued down this path.
I got in trouble at school because I showed up drunk, of course they didn't know that until my mom called them.
I remember I tried something for the first time and the next morning I woke up shaking.
I tried to kill myself a few days later.
After that I stayed clean for ten months.
I'm proud of what I did but I wasn't happy.
I relapsed in the shower in a less than desirable manner.
I don't even remember why.
The pieces were harder to pick up after that.
I tried to be sober but I never made it long.
I don't remember when I decided to go back to my old ways but I certainly did.
It was a month before Christmas and I was back to doing what I wanted.
It's a blur to remember really.
I don't remember why I started again and I don't remember what it looked like.
I do recall that day in April when I took too much and my dad drove me to the hospital.
It's hard to remember really, but I thought I'd stop then.
Two weeks later I was back to where I was, I was disappointed but not entirely surprised.
I remember I was alone and I took a pill or two maybe more.
Again I can't quite remember when I realized how bad I'd gotten but I can definitely see it now.
Maybe it was when I would forget what I'd taken and when, I started a log to keep track, although I hate to see it all staring at me.
Maybe it was when I realized it wasn't fun anymore, that this is how I feel normal.
I don't feel this unique sense of joy anymore, it's just how it is now, this is just how I live.
I feel like I'm chasing something I will never find. I get further from it every day. But that never stopped me, did it?

Writing
Writing has become a very important aspect of my life.
It is the thing I enjoy most, more than anything really.
It's a release, a place of hope, a sense of new beginnings and documentation, there's not something it is not.
I write over my morning coffee, I write for my classes, I write at my job, I write late at night, it truly is my understanding of the world.
I write when I'm angry, I write when I'm sad, I write when I'm happy.
There is not a moment without it.
So on nights like tonight when the words don't come to me I ache a little.
But I know those moments will come again.

Disconnected rambles
I can't find the words for it anymore, this aches because I can always find the words for it.
I'm a writer, that's what I do, I put things into words, so what am I doing now.
How do you explain things when they don't make sense?
When things are this messy, where do you start?
I remember in eighth grade I wrote a book and it was so awful I was glad when I deleted it.
I don't think this book is quite like that but I suspect it may be good to write those last pages.
But then again I'm always looking for the next answer and I never seem to find it.
I can't seem to get the highs I used to.
I think I have trained myself to look for a feeling I know I won't find again.
I haven't found the perfect high in years, yet I am still looking for it.
Maybe this will do it, maybe if I take more, maybe if I take it like this, maybe if I take it with this.
I am still looking.
Being intoxicated isn't always lovely but being sober isn't either.
I became numb.
As much as I hate to admit it this is the new normal, this is what I am getting used to.

Pouring onto the page
I hate the disconnected lines my poetry has become but it's all I can seem to write and writings all I can seem to do.
I am in my little dark age.
I watch the humans as they live happy lives, as they understand each other and laugh and have things make sense.
Why can't I have that?
I took enough to be up but not enough to be happy.
Although I'm starting to think it's losing its light, what else is there?
I write so much about how I hate the substances I put into my body, most often while intoxicated.
I truly despise what addiction has done to me, how these choices have hurt me, but I can't seem to let go.
I was never the smartest but I have dumbed myself down quite a lot.
My life is a dream I can't quite remember.
I float through the dances of today as a shell of what I could be.
I don't know why I relapsed. I don't remember that moment in the slightest. I don't even remember what I took.
I do wish I could go back in time and take it back.
I am rotting truly and genuinely and I don't care enough to stop.
The things I used to dislike about myself are now things I miss.
For most of my life I was passionate about many things.
I wrote, painted, drew, researched, I did everything I could get my hands on.
I called myself scattered but I miss it.
Where did that go?
I do write passionately and endlessly but everything else has seemed to lost it's color.
I went to the craft store today. That used to be my favorite place to be. I walked around aimlessly, I got a composition for a friend and left.
I am disappointed in the creativity that seems to be falling down and decomposing.
My seventeen birthday is next month, no more letters from sixteen, this book will be finished soon.
I am proud of what I have created. I've put many hours of work into it and I can't wait to feel it in my hands.
I worry I'll stop writing once I'm done. This is all I do anymore, what would I be if not a writer?
I'm terrified the next book won't even be started.
Why be scared of that?
I know I love writing more than anything.
I understand this to be one of the most important things in my life, and always on my mind.
Why would I let that go?
Despite losing passion in other areas I have gained it in my writing.
I do it when I wake up, before I go to sleep, and many moments in between.
Although I miss being an artist this monofocused life is something I can learn to love.
I don't often show people I know what I write.
I will always be open to the understanding of a stranger, but most of my readers are not my neighbors.
Although it always feels good when I do show them.
I remember I once wrote a story about a woman being raped.
My so-called storytelling left my mother wondering.
She asked if something had happened to me, I said no, like I always did.
Nearly everyone I've told hasn't hesitated to say they had a hunch.
I thought I kept my pain better hidden.
I remember when I first spoke up I paced around my friend's couch.
My legs hurt by the time I was on the phone with my mother
I remember thinking I'd remember what I was looking at would be something I'd never forget, but I don't remember what I saw.
Although I made the call she had to pull it out of me like a string.
I went home after that.
I told them I was having false memories, but we all knew I was lying.
I thought things would change quicker than they did.
I didn't think I'd be the only one there to file the police report.
One woman told me that he'd be relieved to get caught.
He still hasn't admitted fault.
They asked him over the phone while I was in the other room, I had no clue.
Goes to show how much can exist in one house.
I'm still angry.
I'm still angry at the people who didn't notice. I'm still angry at him. I'm still angry that I am the crazy one.
What a perfect family we appeared to be.
I don't blame the outsiders but when you didn't see what was happening in my own bedroom I can't see why I wouldn't be angry?
Where were you?
All these years and you didn't see it?
They joked that I was the crazy one.
They said they don't know what to do with me.
Why am I the problem?
The anger I have towards him is impossible to put into words.
He broke me into pieces after years of abuse.
I learned to take it, but we both know what happened.
I watched it happens from the corner of my bedroom.
I don't remember why he stopped but after he did he watched myself bleed from trying to pick up the glass.
My mom always talked about how wise he was.
He sure was smart, smarter than me, but I am fundamentally a softer soul.
When I read to the kids at the library I don't give them nights that leave you unable to sleep for years ahead.
It's three am as I write this.
Again not enough to be happy but too much to sleep.
I chase relief but I rarely find it.
When I write I worry about who's eyes will see my lowest points.
When I talk to someone I wonder how they are picking me apart.
I sleep and I dream of it, vividly, it's terrifying.
While the drugs help they don't work quite like they used to.
They provide the same amount of light as a dimly lit candle.
I wonder how this all turns out for me.