Sincerely October

Iris

Iris means rainbow in other languages. This chapter contains lots of conflicting messages and emotions, a whole array of different themes and colors.

Conversations with the living and the dead
Sometimes I have the sense that I am not living in the way I should be living.
I truly hate this feeling. I am a walking corpse. What am I really?
I feel ghostly, stuck in limbo, I haven't quite crossed over to the otherworldly existence but I am human either.

Is this the way you want to spend your life? Is this who you want to be?
When you are on your deathbed will you enjoy reliving the memories of rotting in your bedroom and writing poetry about it?
Tell me, is this the life you want?
Imagine telling this to him, the younger Elliot, what would he think?

I don't have the words for the gray.
It's all in a thick fog.
It's utterly suffocating yet I find it comforting in a way I can't really explain.

This is not the peace you are looking for.
Whatever you are searching for you will not find it here.

Tell me, what else is there?
For people like me, what is the way?
Don't lie to me, let us not pretend for a moment: what can I become when I am the way I am?

Believe me when I say this, you don't have to be defined by this. However it may ache today, we both know it will not always ache.

Growing towards the sun
I have a sense that I am healing, in a genuine way my bruises don't ache quite like they used to and my wounds are scarring over.
I have a feeling of peace I am almost sure I have never had until this March.
It used to be that no matter where I went, no matter who I was, there was something wrong that I often couldn't pinpoint.
There was always a part of me that was hurting, I was never satisfied.
The sun's rays are warming my skin, but I still hurt. The rain drops sound lovely but I am still aching. Today the sky was a lovely shade of blue but nothing is ever enough for me.
I am not that man anymore.
Suddenly when the sun is shining I do not worry or bleed, when things are good they are just that, when I am happy I do not have the sense that I am still in pain.
I used to swallow my anger very poorly.
I thought swallowing it would make it go away, but it didn't.
I do not burn like I used to.
I realized that being angry at him would not change him. Being angry will not change the past. It only hurts me in the end.
I used to have the sense that my happiness could only be sourced in little plastic bags or empty bottles.
The drugs will numb you, but they will not fill you, they pull it out of you, everything you are will be tainted in the chase for a better high.
I haven't felt that burning in my nose or at the top of my throat in a little while, and I never want to go back to that.
So while I may feel the rain drops coming down on me, I know I am only growing close to the sun.

Summer in March
Let us not waste the time we have in this life chasing highs we will never find.
Let me not spend my teen years wondering if this will be my last time, wondering if my fingertips will turn blue, wondering if I'll be an early grave.
I thought I'd always be living like that, I thought all my poems would be about getting high until the abrupt end, but I do not have to be that way.
I told myself I was having fun, but there is no point in pretending.
I was rotting, but those days have ended. I can be me now. Addiction will not be what defines me and eventually kills me.
I've written many poems about aching and chasing, but I will not mourn the living. I will not throw myself away when there is still a chance. Now I will write about living, really living.
It's all so beautiful, I'm not a cynic, not really, not anymore.
How wonderful it feels to have my little life, a life of laughter, poetry, and thrift shops.
How happy I am to feel passion again, to be excited and elated.
I feel as if I moved out of my true home and I am now settling back in.
How lucky I am to smile with the people I love and to work on projects that few will see.
I may never get those moments back but the summer is not over.

Blurry vision
I know better, believe me, I have seen the person who looks at me in the mirror when I'm getting high, I know this is not what I want.
I have seen the way I pick myself apart when I'm using, I rip apart every leaf on every branch on every limb.
I will not tell myself that I can control it this time, that has never gone as planned. I will not tell myself that it will only be once, there is no one more time, I can't count the amount of times I did it just one last time.
I don't miss it, not really. The feeling of bliss and joy I will crave but not what comes with it.
I will not miss the bloody burning nose or the days of blurry vision.
I won't miss peoples faces when they know. I won't miss the disappointment we share knowing that I wasn't sober even when I tried to be.
I won't miss lying and pretending.
I won't miss doing whatever I had to do to make sure I didn't get sick.
I won't miss waking up shaking or vomiting on my carpet at seven am.
Maybe this won't be a flowery poem, but this was everything but flowery.
Life today is a patch of sunflowers looking up towards the sun.
I will not go back to the poison tree. Nothing is worth going back to the poison tree.
I remember one night I realized I may have taken too much. Maybe enough to kill me. Maybe not.
It seemed all I cared about was not getting caught. I said goodnight to my family and went to bed.
I didn't care if I died that night on my bedroom floor. I didn't care at all.
It was just another night, maybe it would be the last one for me, but that's just how it is sometimes.
I didn't think anything of it, I accepted that this might be the end of things and it didn't matter.
So as much as I may miss the relief that comes with whatever I can get my hands on it will never be worth it.