Moss and Mushrooms

Daisies in bloom

A colorful, happy, somewhat intense chapter.
TW: Addiction/substances (past tense, hopeful mention), wound mention

Write about your passion
I wash the dishes while turning on and off the volume of a poetry podcast, tuning out and tuning in as my coworkers tell me about their day, hearing stories of bruises and raised red skin. Maybe I could write about this.
I pick up every poetry book I can find at the thrift shop, skimming the pages for the proper scent, if I can begin to comprehend the words I add them to the stack I walk home with. Maybe I could write about this.
His words burn like alcohol on a wound, a wound that needs to to ache before it can heal. He cannot feed me pretty words that mean nothing, so when he tells me I am doing something right it sinks into the dirt, I carry it with me. Maybe I could write about this.
The list of things I could write love letters to, two AM conversations with my mother, going to the coffee shop with my father and sister, moments that show me I am happier than I was before. Maybe I could write about this.
Vivid dreams of what I have chosen to leave behind, routinely relieving the chase when I fall asleep, slowly the recollections change into something different, like a word translated through so many languages that it has lost all its original meaning. Dreams of sunny places with people who are living in the same way I am. Maybe I could write about this.
A meaningless infatuation with someone I know nothing about, letters written in sunflowers, maybe I could write about this.
Writing when my stomach aches, writing about a crushing weight in my shoulders, writing on dates etched into my memory. Writing when I am elated, writing when I am sitting in the sun, writing on a Sunday afternoon. Writing at coffee shops, writing late into the night, writing in the moments in between.

Write about something you have let go of
The dirt feeds itself, the cycle folds in on itself and repeats relentlessly.
The mold grows slowly and rapidly at the same time, it's always been this way but sometimes you realize it is harder to breathe than it was yesterday.
One becomes accustomed to it, accustomed to feeding yourself the same stories that made you sick, accustomed to bruises becoming open wounds.
In one hundred small but large moments I would unlearn this.
I would peel away the black paint caked onto the canvas, slowly removing every inch that had been overthrown by something that felt bigger. Using new colors, yellow, blue, pink, maybe even green.
Flipping through the pages of the old diaries, diaries documenting every moment of aching, rereading the last entry and keeping it out of sight but never out of mind. Writing about Sundays, writing about moments in which I realized I was loved all along, coffee and sweet dreams.
Knowing that I've seen the aching thoughts become ugly moments that became suffocating summers, thinking about yellow things, thinking about waking up next to him, thinking about poetry, thinking about small moments of joy, thinking about moments when I realized or will realize I have made it through.

Using dreams
A dream that exists like a vivid movie recalling stories of days past and projecting a future that could be if I choose to let it.
We walked into a large store, I told her I wouldn't, I told myself I wouldn't, but maybe I could, just once, it wouldn't be much of anything, I wouldn't even have to change my sobriety date. I don't think it would linger in my life or on the drug test.
Lying to her, lying to me, and I don't believe it, maybe she does, maybe she doesn't.
Doing drugs in my bedroom again, seeking but not finding, take this pill when you want to feel like this and this one when you want to feel like that.
Lines of something. Lying again. Not thinking of my parents but knowing I have failed them.
Texting my sponsor that I won't be calling, telling him I won't be seeing him at a meeting.
It folds in on itself like it always does, I never am relieved I went back to it, at least not for long.
My eyes aren't open yet, not quite awake, not quite asleep, you could call it praying, begging God using the same words over and over again.
God please keep me sober.
Slowly coming back to life and reaching into my bag.
Pulling out the envelope that one could not consider functional in almost any sense, bits missing, taped on every edge, unable to close. The pages have small holes in them, well worn and well loved. Some are more tired than others. I read the prayers with half open eyes.
I awaken into a literal and metaphorical Sunday.
I imagine waking up next to my husband years down the line.
He turns to me with a sleepy smile on his face "How did you sleep?"
"I slept okay. I had a using dream."
"It's been a while since you've had one of those."
Willow comes into the room, she asks questions about what this all means, an attentive child of mine.
She has never known me with liquor on my breath or a runny nose in June.
I told her that when I was young I used to live in the relentless pattern of addiction, that it was an aching time, but it is far behind us now.

Childs painting
Childish as in perpetually confused.
Cities I have never been to, cities I've read about in magazines. Cities I did not know existed, names of cities I will never know.
Much of life unlived, much of the world unseen, many stories unheard.
You are painting on a grand canvas, I know the colors of sunset yellow, auburn, and mossy green, what is this a picture of? I couldn't say.
Childish as in endlessly elated.
Excitement about going to work tomorrow, excitement about the word symphony in my textbook, excitement about his passion, excitement about letter beads and metaphors on my collage.
I've never been this, I've never seen this, I didn't know about that before.
Childish like a small ache in your stomach. Childish like a daisy. Childish as in a lack of understanding, childish as in the burning desire to see the painting.

Small circles around the sun
Filming video diaries almost every night, colorful covers and newspaper fonts, talking about my day and telling the story again, long videos, longer than before, longer than ever planned.
Listening to him, saying what I would have wanted to hear when I was him, telling him that I felt that way before and I don't anymore, telling him I know Sundays exist for both of us.
Playing these songs while falling out of consciousness on my bedroom floor, listening to these songs when writing poetry that reads like a suicide letter, listening to these songs while becoming more hollow than I ever believed myself capable of. I hear it again, softly, on someone else's playlist, I am not hurting and I don't seek that feeling like I used to.
Using my textbook as writing inspiration. Highlighting beautiful words and bizarre phrases that mean nothing, it feels like poetry, but it isn't.
Reviewing December's to-do list, many items crossed off, some not. A similar list for January. A hopeful one, two, and five year plan. Little items on the agenda that are done without thought, little items that used to take days of courage.
Worrying when the work schedule didn't come out on Sunday, elated throughout the house when it was sent to me, textured excited to make pizza dough and wash dishes.
People who use the same words I do. People who live in the same unspoken language I have always existed in. Someone who I have admired for years, someone I forgot was just another person
Seeing shadow people linger in doorways, once fearing them, now knowing they are watching over me, that they are protecting me.
A dinner with people I met at a meeting of alcoholics anonymous, talking about things I understand, not feeling judged when I don't, Gray rooms filled with pink and red, realizing I am not the bleak future I believed myself to be.