axel

::five::

Point of View: noah

[now you know you can't fool everyone

because soon we'll all catch on

that the wolves are back again

you can hide or you can run

against the grain

but as soon as the thunder comes

all the wolves are back again] {Wolves; Bronze Radio Return} 

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{November 3rd-just after midnight}

 Dear Mom,

Dad is apparently back in prison. He was caught with enough heroin that they think he was dealing it, mom. Dealing it. Dealing heroin. Dealing the thing that ripped him apart even further.

He really fell apart after you died. We all did. A part of each of us died with you. But I think we all handled it in different ways, and dad picked the worst of all.

Dad picked drugs. He picked drugs to make the pain of losing you go away. But in doing that, he lost Josiah and I too. He lost everything because he didn't know how to handle it. 

And I get it, I do. At times I wanted my own stash of heroin. 

I went in the bathroom once and just stared at it. He didn't hide his collection very well. I think that was another thing that came from your death. He did drugs so he didn't care. And he didn't. He really truly didn't care.

But I remember going into your bathroom. The bathroom where you curled my hair when I was little. The bathroom where you put lipstick on me when I was old enough to want to look pretty, to look like you. The bathroom you and I painted one summer when you declared that the shade of purple it was was absolutely wretched, and so we painted it exactly one shade lighter. And I just remember staring at the drugs on the counter. And I remember wondering how much I'd have to take to forget. To forget it all. 

Eventually I realized I didn't want to forget. That remembering was my way of dealing with it. But for a while, it was really tempting.

And mom, I remember staring at the drugs and wondering just how much I'd have to take before I'd kill myself. I remember that, mom. I remember wanting that.

And it sucks, because no one should ever want to kill themselves. No one should ever be at the place where that seems like the best option.

But you were gone, and you were my world, and nothing was left but a pile of heroin on the counter and a broken family.

Dad's in prison, mom, and I don't know what to think, what to feel. Isn't that awful? My own daddy is in prison, but everything just feels cold as ice. I can't even feel my own heartbeat any more, and some mornings I wake up and I'm convinced it's just not there.

Mom, I still love dad. I do. But he's not the man you married. He's cold, and he's hurting, and now he's in prison. But I don't know what to do.

Josiah has shut me out.

Dad is gone.

You're gone.

Some days I think I'm gone too. 

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