Skip to main content

Persevere (with your Wet Wings)

I shouldn't have even been there... the urge struck me like a woman possessed and I risked the tipsy trip to 7-11 for cigarettes because NICOTINE GUM WOULDN'T TASTE GOOD WITH WINE. 
Just in time to see the most peculiar checkout scene... the girl looked 12, maybe younger.  her mom was on the Nod in line and the girl, she flitted around trying to make sense of the whole thing, poor little butterfly not understanding why her wings were so damp...
"He's here, Mamma!  I see the white car in the parking lot... here, let me use my card..." and she finished the transaction deftly while her mother leaned her head back and moaned. 

Clearly distraught, the sweet 7-11 attendant tried to hand her the purchases, both hands carefully draping her outstretched extremity with the plastic.  
"Hold onto it... hold onto it tight" he beseeched her, as she stumbled towards the exit, her daughter chastising her ("Mom... MOM!  You forgot my DONUT") and then turned pained eyes to me after she was gone into the night. 

"I see her in here a lot.  Always like this" and he fumbled for words but I read his pain. 
"Yeah, I see this a lot around here.  people can't get help unless they want help for themselves" I say, eyes cast down, knowing I too am there for my Fix.  

He rings me up without judgement, but I feel compelled to say more.  " Hey, keep your head up, man." 
"You too, miss" and my heart breaks into so many pieces I cannot count. The kindness of this stranger, who sees so much, who peddles to our addictions, and must remain a silent onlooker. 

I hope he goes home to a kind place, and lets the weight of the night go, not knowing he has sold another addict another aching hangover, because she has no one waiting for her in a white car, no daughter to try and keep her on track. 

My heart aches for all of us lost souls, and those seeing cycles they may never know how to break.  what a life. 
what a loss.


I poured out that bottle of wine, and the glass I poured myself from that bottle of wine.  I wasn't planning on it, but when I got to that point... 1.5L of cheap rose to the winds, I somehow turned my head instead.
I'm not doing great... these relapses seem relentless, and I cannot recover my momentum like I did in mid-October... when I dared dreamed of a better life.
But somehow, I keep trying.

Popular posts from this blog

Optimism (with Frozen Needs)

Some days I want to write and write and write, and then there are others... the days where I feel as though I physically would choke and die if I attempted to open my journal and put ink on page. I remember that choke .  I used to feel it tighten my throat whenever I cracked open a box of cheap wine and realized I had drank more than intended the night before and could not make it through an entire day with the remaining contents of the sloshing, poisonous bag.  I used to feel it whenever I attempted stepping out of the house, and unless it was for another box of wine, I often let it defeat me. "The Gift of Fear" I thought, priding myself on being so good and so gentle with the mental illnesses that trapped me in that apartment for five slippery sloshing years. Mental illness does not deserve my kind regard. Recently, I've been feeling pretty down on myself, because at 235 days, I am not a saint.  The miraculous transformation I expected to continue in...
Read more

Partnership (with Benefits)

A Thought from last night... Usually, I have very nebulous reasons for staying in a partnership.  It was something I placed more on myself: "I like the way I feel when he..." or "He makes me..." and the longevity was usually based on my perception of their capacity to put up with my bullshit. Small fights breaking out isn't new for me, but not feeling more secure in the relationship bonds after a tit (or alternatively, breaking things off completely) is strange territory. E. is not afraid to walk away after a fight.  He makes it very clear that he stays here so long as he chooses to, and I respect that so long as it's benefiting him, he will find it easier to choose my company.  I am very much the same way.  Thank god we both prefer to talk over conflicts (after a healthy cooling-off period) and find compromises within those conflicts. I find it somewhat important that a partnership doesn't crumble the first time voices are raised. And I'm ve...
Read more

Thankstaking (with Hunger Pangs)

 I should know better by now, than to give into the solitude.  The familiarity of self-destruction, but once more I choose to celebrate only Me.  Another holiday where I stay indoors, where things never change, where I stay in control of my environment in the same way a fish can move pebbles around its bowl. I know better than to smoke, but I bought another pack today.  One last hurrah , except this time its Cowboy Killers, red on white, an exciting stranger in my home.  I take the world in 5 minute, burning breaks, lungs tense and aching, and I suffocate the bright sunshine, the riotously colored trees, and the unseasonable weather, which somehow helps me disconnect myself from the experience outside of my front porch. My head aches.  I am sick, but I am too disassociated to care.  It is a Feeling , and like many others, it can be suppressed if I smoke until I'm dizzy and drink lukewarming coffee until I'm jittery.  It's the closest thing to bein...
Read more