Sincerely October

Mosaic

A collection of different poems that tie together like bits of glass in a mosaic.

Talk yourself down
I can tell myself I miss it, but I don't, not really.
Maybe I miss being able to change the way I feel by a moment's notice, maybe part of me will always miss the burning sensation in my nose, but with that ache comes hundreds of others.
I will never look back fondly on the moments in which people realized the story I was telling them was everything but the truth, the looks on their faces when they realized I was lying the whole time.
I won't miss being all alone, being separated by a wall of my own creation, being an island because I burned all the bridges by biting the hands that fed me.
I don't want to look back on my life knowing that I could have been someone better than I am.
I wish to be more than someone with potential to be better, more than someone who lost their life in the chase of the perfect high.
Because whatever I may tell myself, people will know, people always catch on, and the disappointment stings in a way no other pain does.

Trampled roses
I did that. I have to be honest about things, I can't lie anymore.
I had something beautiful and I stepped on it, I rubbed my feet in the dirt, I didn't care, and now I do.
I didn't care, at least I told myself I didn't, and now I'm aching because I did things I shouldn't have.
I was given a bed of roses and I crushed them under my shoes.
There's only so long people can stick around when you treat them the way I treated them. Things aren't over yet. I stand in between two paths.
Will you numb yourself with the very thing that is making you sick?
Will you get better in a real way? Will people know you meant it this time?
I know what I've done wrong and I know how to stop doing wrong.
If I want to be better I have to know I've been worse.
So sit in it, sit in the misfortune that wouldn't exist if you had been better.
Sit in it because the second you forget what you have done is the second you get closer to ruining another flower bed.

Golden days
Things used to be so raw, my shoulders used to ache from carrying all that happened and all the ways I chose to push it out of my mind.
I thought the rape would never fully leave my mind. I thought the drugs would never leave my backpack.
I accepted my fate.
I was never going to learn to live with the memories, I was to chase a high I'd never find until my untimely death.
Things aren't like that anymore. I'm sober because I want to be. I don't think about the rape like I used to.
I feel like I'm finally alive, like I've been bleeding and finally I am scarred, not wounded
I don't want to bruise myself anymore. I don't have to.
I don't have to be an early grave. I don't have to be a painful memory of what could have been in the minds of those I should have outlived.
I have the sense that things are just beginning, that I am just beginning my journey down a path of flowers.

Maybe
I'm starting to think I can learn to live with the truth.
It's always been this way, I know that. I've tried to look elsewhere but it never leaves my sight.
I haven't always wanted to be like this. I thought this l made me unloveable and unacceptable, but maybe that's not true.
Maybe this isn't the worst thing someone can be. Maybe it's not bad at all.
Maybe I can accept this and know the ins and outs.
Maybe I can learn to live with what I know.

Never to define me
I have a deep understanding that when I start again there's no telling where I'll find myself.
There's no promise I can make to myself that I know won't be tainted and eventually broken.
Because I still want to, maybe I will for a while, but I stopped for a reason.
I stopped because I wasn't myself anymore.
I stopped because I lost control in the animalistic chase.
I stopped because people were leaving for good reason.
I don't want to be like that anymore, I was not myself until I got sober and knew I was to stay that way.
So maybe I do wish for it, but the life that comes with it is a life that I don't want to be a part of.
I hope more than anything that I am not defined by this. If I do it again, and again, and again I will be defined by my greatest ache.
When it's in front of me and I let myself do it I am defined by the drugs. I am nothing more than an addict, and I want to be more than that.

Towards sunrise
You'll be glad you did it now, you'll be glad you got sober young, you'll be glad you didn't let this define you.
You will kick yourself in the same ways you did yesterday if you don't pick up the pieces now, you'll be worse off than you were this time, last time, and the time before that.
You will feel relief in the future if you put this down in a real way. You won't always want it like you do now.
It will be worth it if you try.

Green walls
I'm not angry as I once was.
For a while I didn't understand how he never noticed, I didn't understand how that could happen in your house without you being aware of it, but the truth is I was silent and he was good at making me stay that way.
My preparator knew how to fool everyone and I learned how to pretend. I learned how to lie and act in a way that hid who he really was.
It's not just my parents that didn't know, it was everyone, and I am tired of being angry.
The truth is my father has loved me more than most. He doesn't want me to be perfect, he wants me to be happy, and that's more than most people can say.