Sincerely October

Vacant - Vulnerable

V for dictionary poetry.

Vacant
I hear his footsteps coming up the stairs, my body stays in my bed but my house of a mind is left empty, I am no longer home.
When I was young I had to disconnect, I had to be somewhere else, being here and now was a weight I could not carry.
Even when the abuse ends the disconnect lingers.
It lingers when I feel a constant sense of separation from the world around me, never feeling fully present and never wanting to.
It lingers when I don't recognize my own bedroom, when everything I know feels unfamiliar. 
It lingers when everything feels like a surreal dream, when everything is distorted and plastic.
It lingers when I spend more time in day dreams than anywhere else.
It lingers when everything is covered by a fog preventing me from seeing ahead or behind me.
My house of a mind remains busy and active, the world is vivid and enticing, but there still comes a day when all the noise is drained out and once again nobody is home.

Valentine
I thank him for all he did for me.
I tell him that he is exactly what he should be, that nothing about him doesn't make sense.
I tell him that it's okay to be happy and it's okay to hurt.
I thank him for holding it all so I don't have to.
I tell him how proud I am that he has been so strong but that he doesn't have to be anymore.
I promise him that he is allowed to be scared, that it makes sense that he is, but that he does not have to protect himself anymore.
I tell him that I'm sorry for being so ashamed of him, that I am proud of him, that if he weren't himself I don't know what I would be.
I apologize for ever judging him, I tell him that he is nothing to be sorry for.
I tell him that I am sorry he had to go through all he did.
I will tell him every day that he is not at fault, that he didn't cause any of this.
I tell him how proud I am of him, how proud I am that he finally spoke up when it felt like his voice had been taken.
I remind him that he did it at just the right time, that I wouldn't have it any other way, and that I wouldn't have him any other way.

Valuable
I believe that any poem written from the heart is a valuable poem.
In my books I save nearly every poem I write, because they all have a special piece in the mosaic of my writings.
If I write it and I mean it then it is good enough.
Even if it does not use beautiful metaphors, even if it is rambling and repetitive, even if it is short and thoughtless, it all captures a piece of my heart and that is worth saving.

Vanilla
I enjoy doing my schoolwork and doodling while taking notes.
I cherish writing for hours at a time.
I hold the moments I spend with my friends and family close to my heart.
I am grateful to not feel elated or so slow I have sunken into the floor.
I am happy to go to AA meetings and call my sponsor nearly every day.
I am so lucky to grow to love my boyfriend a little more every day.
I love my vanilla life.

Vast
Writing has served an expansive and ever growing purpose in my life.
It helps me capture every passing moment, especially the moments that slip through my fingers like sand. Let me save the thoughts and memories of today, let me hold onto them without having to let go of them.
Writing has always been a place for me to capture the things I cannot say out loud, it gives me a place to ponder the moments I am yet to admit to, it lets the stories that replay at my expense drain from my mind.
Writing has become a part of who I am, it is something I know I will do under any circumstances, it is something within myself I can rely on.
Writing gave me a place to describe the experiences that haunt me, a place to be deeply affected and shaken by days past.
Writing's purpose in my life is forever growing and endlessly appreciated.

Venus
I cherish our conversations, tell me about your day, ask me questions, we can listen to each other ramble.
I am ashamed of many things that he knows about me without judgment.
He knows about the pieces I live in, he understands what happened to me, he accepts me because in many ways I am just like him.
I can be any version of myself and know that I am loved by him.
In my life this level of understanding is something that rarely occurs.
He is one of my favorite people I have ever met, he is someone who knows what it's like and knows what to say when he doesn't.
He helps me love the parts of myself I am deeply ashamed of.
I am undoubtedly lucky to have a man like him in my life, someone who loves so much and judges so little.

Verbose
I'm tired of writing about it and I'm tired of detailing the stories of what happens without actually saying what happens, yet here I find myself.
It's always been like this, I find it hard to imagine things being any other way, I almost don't want it to be. Maybe one day I will learn but I am still in the middle of it.
I am ashamed. How did I let myself get here? Why is everything I do worse because of it? It's too embarrassing to talk about.
Why would I ever say it out loud? Why would I paint myself like that?
One day I will zip it all up and ignore it until it goes away. It might not, it's been quite some time since it has, but I have a long way to go before I even consider my options.
The guilt weighs heavy on my stomach.
Is this what you want? Was it worth it? Why aren't you doing better? Why aren't you better? Why can't you just be normal?
I would love to be normal, I would love to not worry about it, I would love to think about something else, but I'm not there, and I have a long walk ahead of me.
I will find my way, I will learn, I will.
I will earn my spot and I will figure this out, one day.
It seems out of reach, always out of reach.
My shame weighs on my shoulders.
Why are you like this? You don't look the part. You don't get to write about things like this.
It's always there, lingering, and maybe it looked different last month than it does today and yesterday and tomorrow but it never really leaves.

Vice
I sometimes think about the drugs and the detox and the feeling of doing a line of whatever.
Sometimes I miss it, I know that it will not make it happy, not in a way that matters.
I'm scared that one day for a short moment I will forget what it was like and I will return to it.
I carry a lot of guilt for the things I did. At the time I didn't really care, not even a little bit, I was simply getting what I needed, and who could fault me for that?
Still, I had a blatant disregard for those around me, at points I didn't see what I was doing as wrong.
If anything keeps me sober it's knowing that I never want to behave like that again. I've had dreams about apologizing to people who no longer speak to me.
With six months between me and my last high I can see things more clearly.
The highs aren't as high, and part of me misses that, but I have recently come to understand that the lows aren't as low.
I do not miss being insatiable, a hole that no drug or person or thing could fill.
I sometimes wish I could do another line, that I could reenact the ritual.
Still, a bigger part of me is happy to be sober, the thought of being sober for the rest of my life is enchanting.
I don't have to give away my life anymore, I do not have to be controlled by something that will kill me, I don't want to let that go, not ever.

Vivid
I find it difficult to imagine feeling or thinking or being anyway that is different from right now.
My emotions are heavy and affect me deeply, when I am sad it has always been raining, when I am happy summer never ends, when I am disconnected I have never been held in my life, and when I am in love I have found what I have always been looking for.
It is hard to imagine growing up and writing different stories, or meeting someone I don't know the name of today and talking to them for months.
I find it hard to understand that I will be happy and sad and angry again, that I will like something I don't even know of, that I will think different thoughts and do different things.

Vulnerable
I used to ask myself what I did wrong, and for much of my life I believed I did something wrong.
I told myself that I liked it, that I did something to bring that out in him, or that somehow the little girl who was just trying to survive was doing something wrong.
I still find myself wondering what I did to welcome his unwanted advances, but I must remind myself that he is a bad man and I was simply there.
He is a man who does not respect people in the way that he should, he is a man that doesn't love people like I do, he was going to hurt someone and I happened to be the person that was there.