Sincerely October

Through rain and sun

A vent chapter with uplifting undertones.

The black cat 
It all feels disheartening right now, you're shaking because things don't make sense, this feels like a bad omen.
It's not foreshadowing days to come, you hope so, at least.
You want to look at the pieces of art at the gallery but they are tainted and made ugly.
You want things to feel normal and breathe like everyone else does, but you feel as if you can't keep the sand from slipping through your fingers.
It's isolating, living with the knowledge that your mind is the way it is leaves you feeling alone in crowded rooms.
The hallucinations have grown to be a part of my life, this is the way things are, this is the way I am.
My mind plays tricks on me, it almost always has been, I know that my perceptions are false, I know you don't see the man standing in the corner, I know he isn't there, not really, but that doesn't mean I don't see him, that doesn't mean he's not lingering.

Bittersweet
You know you'll get through this, you've made it through things thus far, the rape didn't kill you, he didn't kill you, the drugs didn't kill you, so you know you will live to see another day.
You will listen to the songs you used to listen to during the first little dark age, you tell yourself that if that child makes it through far worse, that you can too.
With this knowledge you are comforted but it is still disorienting.
This room doesn't look the same during the day. This room has a certain kind of sunshine and holiness that it doesn't have during the night.
Isn't that always true? In my life I was always the loneliest in the evenings.
Things don't look right. You know I can't explain it but I will try. The TV static covers everything. My eyes lie to me every day. I know you don't see the things I see. I know my mind perceives things that are nothing, really.
But the bitter days are over, for today I will enjoy the knowledge that I made it through a fiery hell and am only cleaning wounds from days past.

The human condition
Isn't it lovely?
I wish I could find the words for it, but the existence of the human being is far too powerful to fit into a poem or book or library.
I may feel lost at times, but I am lucky, I think we all are.
The experience is exhilarating, the moments at the lake, the shared moments of laughter.
The sense I get when I see you shine like the sun, the feeling you get when you see a real smile on my face.
We all love and want to be loved. My freckles may appear differently on my skin then they do yours, but we are not all that different.
We all want to see someone's questions answered by something we said. When you wrap me in your arms you are water to my roots.
I listen to songs by people I've never met and feel seen by people you died years ago.
I take walks to feel the sun on my skin and stop to take photos of the flowers along the way.
I call you when I want to hear someone else's voices and you ask me about how my day went even though we both know I'll tell you next week anyway.
I may not see the beauty in my human condition every day, but there is beauty in it in every moment.

Not anymore
Such a bittersweet taste is left in my mouth when I realize I have nothing to blame anymore.
It's a beautiful thing, not being followed by a gloomy collection of memories, knowing that I am sunny in a real way, and believing that my sobriety is more than fleeting.
I never thought days like this would come, I accepted those aches as my reality, though now I know they are far from the truth.
My heart sleeps easier at night knowing that my little dark age is over.
Yet, at this moment I am left to look in the mirror and see what I really am, to see what lies under the river water.
I always blamed the drugs for my hallucinations, maybe being so low brought this out of me, maybe this will go away when I stop thinking about the rape so much.
But time passed, my branches grew in different directions, and this still lingers.