Sincerely October

It's summertime

A hopeful chapter.

Patches of sunlight
I have spent many days in darkness, much of my life I have been aching, and I thought this was simply the way it was.
Sometimes the moon will shine, you will find candles in the city that will keep things just bright enough, but no flame will remove the skeletons in your closet.
There is no home, there is no connection, things may be beautiful but you don't have the means to see them.
This is just how it is.
I looked for light in bottles that leave your throat warm and bags that leave your nose burning. Maybe in those moments I felt myself become sunny, but the gold never stays.
You fill yourself with pills and bottles and powders that will make you feel whole, but they don't, not really.
It's a honey that feels so sacred but leaves you more empty then you thought was possible.
It's the best you've ever felt, but it's the worst you'd ever know.
I was aching and my closet only became full of more skeletons, but if the innerward summer was with me I didn't care to think about the skeletons.
This will help, I need this, this is the only thing that makes me happy, this is the only thing that works,
This will be the last time, I mean it, this is the last time really, and finally, if you're lucky, the last time comes with days after it.
Soon enough I would see that I am not alone in my aches, many have similar stories and skeletons in their closet.
I am not the only one with red on my knuckles and scars around my neck.
I am not the only one with an ache where a childhood should have been.
The patches of sunlight are peaking through the trees, I can feel them, I can feel the warmth on my skin.
I'm scared and shaking but I am more than my pain.
I can go where I want, I can be who I want, you can't step on me or cover my mouth, not anymore.

The lucky addict
You spend your life aching in one way or another, skeletons fill your closet, you're haunted by ghosts and apparitions in the mirror.
You aren't what you should be. This is what happened and no one can know. You can pretend to be what you want to be but you will never be it.
One day, a day you will never forget, you get a taste of something special.
Sweet mother of god this is everything I've been looking for.
It's divine and otherworldly, this is it.
It all makes sense now, this is what I want.
You feel the sun shining in your chest, you radiate bliss unlike anything you've ever known.
You've been falling apart your whole life and today you are whole, for the first time in your life you are whole.
This is all I want.
You do it again, and again, and again.
You ask yourself another question that is answered by this internal summer.
You do it when you're scared, when you're happy, and when you're sad.
You do it when the moon is out, you do it when the sunrises and every moment in between.
I find myself chasing this internal summer more than I should.
Life slips through my fingers like sand, soon it's all you want and all you search for.
Days and nights are replaced with the chase for the internal summer and relief when it is found.
But the sun doesn't shine like it used to.
Your tolerance climbs high, your relationships are strained and soon gone.
You'll burn everything up, you're rotting from inside out.
Things will get darker as you go along.
"I'll never do this." It's done and more.
"I'll never lose this." It's already gone.
You aren't who you used to be, you've lost yourself in the chase.
For many it ends there.
The lights are on but nobody's home, and for some the lights go out.
You choke on your own vomit, someone finds your body in a basement, you take too much for the last time.
It's unfortunate, but none of us are above it.
For the lucky addicts the low point comes with days after it.
The darkest moments become memories and stories.
We have a chance to get sober, we can breathe, and not everyone gets that.

Nothing better
Picking up the pieces, standing over the puzzle and turning them, then tossing them out your bedroom window if they don't fit.
Listening to the songs you used to get high to, the songs from your little dark age, knowing you don't hurt like you used to.
Repainting the canvas white and slowly adding a mosaic of color back into your life.
I still get the sense that I am far away from you, I suspect I always will, but I am not in the dark anymore, I am not unseen or unaccounted for.
I used to love painting, drawing, upcycling, beading and poetry. Most of that blew away in the wind but I am an artist again.
For much of my life I believed that happiness was only found in drugs, and maybe that was true for a time but it's not true anymore.
Poetry is my mirror reflection, I write what I am, and the metaphors are most often about summer and sunlight, I don't think I ache quite like I used to.
I felt like a shell, nothing sunk in, I was moved by the tides but nothing changed or sunk in, now I get the sense that I'm a vine growing towards the sun.
My little dark age is over, even in my darkest moments and loneliest evenings I know that I made it out of my little dark age.
I still ache, but I think I will get better, I can live with the bruises.

An unsent letter to my father
What would you like me to say?
I do love you, how could I not?
But we cannot pretend anymore.
I will not pretend anymore, I don't care to quiet myself, I don't care if you see me bleeding or hear the sounds of me vomiting through the walls.
You tell me to be honest so I will be.
If I am happy I'll dance in the sun and if I am aching I won't swallow my bruises.
I love you so much and the thought of going back to your house makes me ache.
I hate you because you had years to notice the abuse and you never did.
How did the perfect father not see?
You were outfoxed by a perpetrator and a child.
I thought I was done for if you ever found out, so I pretended and lied and compartmentalized but I was eleven and it was seeping out of me.
It's not your fault, I'm not as angry as I once was, but please let's not try for what we will never have.
As cruel as it may sound, our family was never sunny and it never will be, I love you, but the picture was never right.
Your house haunts me, it was never a home and it never will be.
I lay down to sleep in the same bed it happened in and I wonder how many cum stains must be on this mattress.
It's all how it used to be, so excuse me for wanting to leave.
I know you're trying, but what happened is done and over with, so please see it for what it is.
When your child tells you that he wishes to leave, consider saying something that doesn't make me add another reason to the list.
I do love you, I think you are a better father than most, but let's be honest, there's nothing for me back there, I don't want to sleep in that room again and I shouldn't have to.
I don't know what I will have to do to make sure I don't end up back in that bedroom, but I assure you I will do it.