The Sudden Dark

Before

There are some days it seems like the sun is setting on you in a flash of sudden darkness; others it seems like it's rising. 

Doesn't have to be at dawn or dusk in my experience. Just a certain type of mood you get into, I guess. A kind of feeling you have whether things seem to be going right and your world seems to be spinning in the right direction for once—or else whether you feel as if you're laying deep on the bottom of the ocean, and all the boats and the tides and the waves are brushing on over your head whether you like it or not.

There are times when I get contemplative, and times when I can shut myself up and get the electricity in my brain back on track. Thoughts come and go these days, and there's not much I can do to wrangle them. They haven't put an ankle bracelet on me (yet), so I can thank them for that, at least—but the further I go on, the surer I am that it's not just the liquor that's the problem.

Of course, the liquor was a problem, and a big one—it greased the wheels well enough to set me rolling down the street and crash, at least. But the destruction was mine and mine alone, and I can't pass that off, no matter how hard I try.

I'm past a lot of that now, hopefully. Nothing much left to do now but calm my mind and wait, and hope that something turns out right from all the way down here in the sudden dark.

But deep down, I know who I am. I know the sun rises and sets over me; I know the moods I fall into; I know how I feel about myself.

And I know all the things I can't stop no matter how hard I try. I know me.

I know me. If I didn't, no one else would.