Moss and Mushrooms

Eighteen

A chapter written around my 18th birthday.
TW: addiction/drugs

Seventeen
I remember where I was on my seventeenth birthday.
I sat at the wooden kitchen table with my friend's mother, it was morning time and the house was dimly lit.
I told her everything, I told her all about the drugs, I told her about how I tried to stop and I couldn't, she cried.
Seventeen was a year of growing pains, of learning things the hard way, of pushing and gritting my teeth until things made sense for just one moment.
Seventeen was pages of rambles, seventeen was crying because I didn't know how I was going to survive this, seventeen was biting my hand until it bled because I just needed to hold on for a moment longer.
I learned that nothing lasts forever, I learned that whatever I am looking for will not be found in a bottle or bag, I learned that no one could fix me but me.
Seventeen was lonely. Seventeen was slowly growing towards the sun. Seventeen was spending three of twelve months in rehab.
Seventeen was finally feeling like this makes sense, seventeen was feeling like I am finally breathing.

Rotten apples
I don't want to think about it anymore. I don't want to write about it anymore. I wish I could rid myself of it all.
I dream about it often. I have dreams about buying cough syrup, I have dreams of drinking entire bottles of vodka.
It changed my mind, it changed me, because no matter what I do I will still have days where I miss it more than I've missed anything.
This has been the hardest thing to let go of, out of everything that was left behind this hurts the most.
I wish I never knew what this was like, I wish I never felt the feeling of burning in my nose because now I miss it and I cannot fill the hole in me.
I don't even know what I'm missing anymore. I can't recall most of it, but it had tattooed the walls of my mind.
Everything is the way it should be, everything is as I want it, and there is still a lingering sense of dissatisfaction because I know what I have gotten a taste of.
I know what I want, I know whatever I am looking for will not be found here, I believe that, I try to live in the good moments as they come.
I enjoy my birthday without wondering about getting my next fix, a birthday that does not involve going to rehab, a year that can be entirely sober.
I sit with my family and I know I am doing the right thing. We laugh and I don't worry they will find out. I know I will find my way through this.

Arcane
I've found it exceptionally easy to put it in the basement of my mind, forget about it, put it away.
I wouldn't know where to begin. I don't know how I'd say it, I don't know how I'd live with it.
It's always been there, it probably always will be, but it feels too heavy to admit.
It is real, I can pretend, I can get good at ignoring it, but it will remain.
I wouldn't know where to start. I'll make some jewelry, I'll write another list that will be deleted, I'll talk about it and wish I never did.
I would love to make peace with it, I would love to see my survival as beautiful, because it is beautiful.
I lived through it and that's all that matters.
Still, I wish I could make sense of this, I wish I knew where to put it down, I wish it had a place to live outside of my mind.