Candlelit midnights

The little black notebook

These poems were written in my first two weeks in rehab, a lot of growing pains and new ways.

The blooming
I remember telling myself this would be the last time, soon I'd realize if I didn't tell someone it wouldn't be,
If I tried to stop in the comfort of my bedroom I wouldn't.
On the morning of my seventeenth birthday I pushed to dominos by telling the truth,
I answered my questions more honestly than I ever saw myself doing.
In the first few days I lived in a fog.
I felt as if my mind was full of overwhelm yet painfully vacant,
Like the person I was bled out on the bathroom floor.
A reanimated corpse I was, but I'd soon see myself to be more than the decay.

A letter to my younger self
When writing a letter to my younger self I could fill endless pages of what I would say.
I would tell him that one day what left him aching stops, and one day he knows he's not alone.
I would tell him about the days of passion and connection he has ahead of him.
I'd write to him about the man he grows to be and the boy he is seen as.
I would tell him that even in his worst moments it all turns out okay.

Haunt me
Please, not again, I can't do this again.
It's been months since I've seen him but he lingers.
I see him everywhere, walking in the halls, reaching beneath doors.
Please, not again, I can't do this again.
I attempt to tape myself together, but the rain pours senselessly.
When the nurse asked about my distress I was unable to verbalize the dread.
Please, not again, I can't do this again.
It's a shadow, an ache that doesn't seem to end, a book of questions I cannot answer.
Please, not again, I can't do this again.

Written by a ghost
I feel as if those nights my humanity was ripped away from me but by bit.
By the end of the abuse I was no longer human, I was an actor, an object, the trash that gets picked up on Tuesdays, I was many things, but human was not one of them.
To him I never was, and to myself I hope I one day will be.

Past selves
From the depths of my addiction to the ten months unbound, I never saw myself reliving days like these.
I swore I'd stay sober, I promised I wouldn't tell people I wasn't.
I am now heavily aware that these statements hold little truth to them.
I didn't stop, this time it ached more than ever.
Yet both of these people would be proud of me today.

Sucked dry
I watched myself from above as I bled out on the bathroom floor.
I wanted my passion, my happiness, my connection, all flow down the drain of my shower.
Parts of myself went missing and are yet to be found.
Addiction can kill you if you let it, and believe me it's hard not too.
I noticed that I have moments of feeling like myself again, fleeting they may be, but they are melting into eachother.
I didn't realize how bleak things were until I stopped.
The black and white was so normal to me until I saw others living in color.
I still exist in the gray, but each sunset grows more vibrant than days past.

Him
When I was holding the bags and bottles closer than anything else I felt as if I went missing.
I played a part, but nobody was behind the mask.
I wore the clothes he wore, I said the things he would say, I did the things he would do, but I was not him.
When I stopped the hollowing came.
I stared at the ceiling, I looked for what I would not find, I walked and pondered aimlessly.
But bit by bit the drought became less harrowing.
The rain drizzled just enough to watch the flowers.

October
I often wonder what I will remember this period of my life by.
It will be the sting of a new life.
It will be the ramblings I wrote to capture what I will never forget.
It will be the sense of connection I am only beginning to know.
It will be the fear that holds me and the knowledge it won't always be so.
It will be counting my days clean.
It will be remembered by a new sense of happiness.