Moss and Mushrooms

Heart shaped box

I see this chapter as a memory box, I imagine a cardboard box in the shape of a heart, a small one, painted red, the paint job is messy but that is not a bad thing. This chapter is more so imaging trying to capture my life today so I can relive and recall the highlights in the future.
TW: addiction/substances

Fond moments
It's a Saturday morning, I am at the thrift store, I have slowly peeled my way through each section and I have arrived at the poetry books. I sit on the cold concrete and slowly climb my way up the shelf. I pull out any book that has the scent of a possible poem within its covers, I flip through the pages frantically, I skim for stanzas, if it is a book of poetry I add it to the ever growing pile on the top of the shelf. When I have picked the flowers I walk towards the couch and slowly move my way through the tall stack. I choose a random page and begin reading. If the words are water that seeps into the dirt, if it doesn't awaken a sense of dislike within me I will leave with fifty less cents than I entered with.
The mess has grown to be an existence of its own. I am stepping over dirty laundry with every intention of cleaning this bedroom later today or tomorrow or this weekend. I'll arrange my books and my nightstand, I just need to wait until I have it within me to methodically rewrite this chapter. I stand in the corner and slowly guide my way into a cleaner room, nothing left disregarded or forgotten, besides those papers shoved underneath the drawers, I'll forget about those. I hang up the clothes that have been clean for weeks, I lay the blankets on my bed, and put the pillows in order. I arrange my books and old diaries. Everything has a place to live.
He's someone to appreciate from a far. I watch interviews just to hear his voice, his name lingers in my mouth, I have a collection of moments from movies I've never seen. I haven't seen his movies in years, but he is pretty. Maybe I can declare my love to a stranger, it's okay for this to be lighthearted and pink. It's okay to love daisies without knowing what a bouquet of them symbolizes.
I spent years drowning in a dark sea, I lived with my head underwater and sometimes I could half catch my breath, I didn't know what life was, I didn't know what living was if not trying to survive until tomorrow. After many months of finding my way to shore I would realize I have been sitting on the beach, I feel the sand on my hands and can smell the salt from afar. I watch the waves rise and and fall. I often close my eyes and lay on my back just to feel the sun's warmth on my skin.
I walk into the eight PM meeting of alcoholics anonymous, the coffee tastes awful but it warms me. I don't know your favorite color but I know about the moments that could have changed your life in the way a drought affects the flowers. I don't know your birthday but you hug me a little tighter than most people could. We'll laugh about the light hearted aspects of today, we'll talk about the heaviness of addiction. Here I want to be good and I know you want to be as well. I don't want to do the things you tell me I should do on the phone but I will because this is what makes me feel like the human I want to be.
I cough up a piece of notebook paper reading "You are abnormal." I carry it with me in my shirt pocket, always close enough to hear my irregular heart beat. I add items to it often, it grows to be a long list of words I put between me and you. Today I learned your name and you showed me a list of items that looked like mine. Maybe the list should have stayed swallowed.
I do my Christmas shopping on a Saturday afternoon. I buy mugs, stuffed toys, tea, and a small collection of pink beads. I fill the twelve bags with candy, jewelry, and face masks. I write the definition of eunoia or arcane on your diary and give you a small note card detailing the ways in which you could use that definition in this new book of yours.
I sit with my family at the dinner table or in the car and I realize that I made this something it didn't need to be. We laughed while playing cards and talking about our days. I realized they always loved me, I just didn't let myself feel it. They would rather me hurting loudly rather than clenching my teeth in silence, they love me as I am and they always did.
I didn't mean to find him until I did. I finished my drink and I asked him if he felt the same way. He loves me when I cannot keep myself out of rehab, he loves me when I forgot I have said this many times, he loves me when I go by a different name. He loves me when I pick up another sobriety chip, he loves me when I send him texts about how I am so lucky to have found him, he loves me when I write him poems. A love letter to him would fill diaries. I adore the little things about him, the way he talks, the way he relates to himself, the way he dyes his hair every two weeks, the way he draws, the way he sends me photos of what he is wearing today.