Sincerely October

Retelling

A chapter in which I write on familiar topics with a new perspective.

Dancing with a ghost
Sometimes I can't seem to pull these thoughts out of the grips of my mind.
I've written these stories so many times, how many ways can I rearrange the words?
How many ways will I spell it out? I want to get high but I know I shouldn't. How many ways can I say it?
The stories replay in my mind, they haunt me, because it's not like signing the papers, it's not something you do once, I have to make this choice every day.
I write notebooks of goodbye letters, I bite my hand until the cravings pass.
I think a part of me will be missing it for a long while. Part of my mind will work out the details while the other part tries to drown out the sounds of plans of how I could do it.
I felt like I was in love with the drugs, I felt like I had found the answer to every question I could ever think of, and now I have to stop and stay stopped in a way that matters.

Goodbye for now
You were always there, during my little dark age you held my hand as tears fell down my face, even when no one else would.
When I talk to you I know I am seen, I know that I am accepted.
Nobody understands addiction like an addict, so when I told you the ugly parts of my addiction, when I told you about the drugs and the withdrawals I knew you understood what it was like to be me.
Even if you didn't share my experience you always knew what to say.
I'll miss you but I know you're unhappy, I know you need something I cannot give you, so I hope you find it.
I hope you find the happiness you are looking for.

All the things I did
I have done many things I am not proud of, I have been unkind.
I have created so many messes, more than I can clean up.
I am doing the things I need to do to be different, I am changing my ways, but that doesn't take back the things I did.
I burned so many bridges, some of which will never be repaired.
I lied, I told stories of what I thought you wanted to hear, I built walls out of paper until the ground crumbled beneath me.
I would like to think of myself as a good person but good people don't do the things I did.
So I worry about running into you, I worry about you seeing me at the thrift store because you have every right to be angry, you have every right to spit in my face.
I ruined this one, I tore this one. I have no right to miss you because you never did anything but hold me and I hurt you in the end.

Staring at the ceiling
Nothing makes sense right now.
I can't seem to understand what's going on around me. I wonder what someone would do if they saw me like this, eyes wide open, holding myself because I'm too scared to let someone hold me.
I want the hallucinations to stop. I can't be powerless to this.
Things don't look quite right and they haven't in some time. I couldn't pinpoint when they started this time but I know they haven't stopped.
I feel so blank, like I am nothing but a silent stare at the ceiling.

Dear friend of mind
I wish I could change the way things ended.
I wish I could tell you that I'm alright, that I'm sober in a way that matters, that I didn't mean it when I said I was giving up.
I wonder if you ever blocked my number, I wonder if we'll ever run into each other again.
I wish I could hug you and apologize, because I did things I shouldn't have.
I told you I was getting high again, and we both know not everyone survives their relapses.
You meant so much to me and I told you to go.
So dear friend of mine I hope we meet again one day, I hope I can tell you all about it.

The district sleeps alone tonight
This song has been playing for many months, this song has been a witness to my life falling apart and slowly coming back together.
I used to listen to it when I was drunk, I would write for hours on end. It has memories sewn into the fabric of the lyrics.
It brings me back to riding my bike to the library, to the lovely girl who still works there, to sleeping in my fort and going to bed at six am.
During my little dark age this song brought me a sense of peace, I felt seen even though the lyrics may not have been written from someone in my shoes.
Things are different now.
I listen to this song with more time between me and the drugs than I have had since my addiction resurfaced.
Things are still confusing, I am still lost, but I am no longer in the woods.
I am still learning how to hold myself but I am far more hopeful than I ever was.

Goodnight
Recently the memory of the night I was going to die lives in the forefront of my mind.
I remember realizing I had taken too much, maybe too much for me to handle, maybe too much for me to live through.
I wasn't sure. I sat with it for a minute. This may kill me, but if I go to the hospital my dad will come with me, he will know what I am and I can't have that, so I said goodnight.
I hugged my dad and went to the fort in my bedroom. I wrote an entry that may have been my last and I went to sleep.
I didn't want to die, but I didn't care if I lived either.
Surely I'd be fine and if I wasn't then I wouldn't know.
How unsettling it is to look back on a night you made peace with your own death, realizing I cared but not enough to risk getting caught.