Recovery of an addict

 Recovery of an addict

Far too weary I grow of empty words and the silence that accompanies them. I scream at nothing.
Echoes off of walls are no longer enough for the mind to pretend that others are there and caring. They are words wasted on the deaf. Barbed wire books for the blind.
The pilot light that kept warm the love I had for you, has been vanquished by the winds of change. The storm is reckoning. Stirring and whirling up the dirt that clings to a man until his mouth resembles a grave.  The death and decay that I was was metamorphosing into a different breed of destructive. 
I had forsaken my honor for the advice of a foolish heart. I had sought counsel from the unwise and believed. Within me there was an emptiness and I sought to placate. Trading valor for a fall, Swallowing a deceptive form of  the man I used to be. She was as a drug to me.

I took her into my blood and she impaired my thoughts and mind. I stumbled as if in a stupor of wine. The taste of her affection was a high I had never experienced before. It began so innocently. She placed her delicate hands on the open wound of my solitude. The pressure of contact belayed my hemorrhaging of cold. She was good, and I was broken. The intoxication of those whiskey eyes made my judgment askew. Sound judgment of perceived boldness was truthfully reckless and brash. I'd dressed myself with good intentions. My finest attire was ashes. I stood with my soul bare.

I saw my reflection in the eyes of passersby, looking on the greatest weakness I've ever been. I had once seen such strength within. My feet were stone and my back was oak, enduring against the greatest of oppression and not breaking. When I looked into her eyes I believed myself that man.
Now those eyes are shut.  Both hers and mine. I walk forward without seeing. Not needing an understanding. Not needing a direction. Only grasping in the dark for distance itself.

The sobering detoxification of an element is something that is felt from every cell of the genetic makeup.
Love is a drug that overcomes all of you. The pain of a lapsing prescription wreaks havoc on the senses.  Loss overshadows life. Definition obscures into irrelevance. Questions of self and character are drooled onto the floor of a higher power. Inquiries of why this path lead here are laid before him as words are so delicately chosen as to not hint a blame in his direction. The knowledge that my choices, and my actions are what brought me here to this moment are not something that can be passed. The first step is admitting you have a problem.

The paradox of being both free and alone is a coupled reality. We all chain ourselves to something. We often willingly cleave ourselves to others.  It is difficult to watch a transition in others when you try to break free from something yourself. Those who once turned a blind eye or even supported your habit, now look on you with disdain for being an addict.  You see the failure they see in you.  You look for redemption in their eyes.

Redemption is not something given you start to see. It is something stolen.
What of restoration? They will give praise and accolades on being clean and sober but all the while their eyes fall upon you waiting for you to slip. Waiting for your pupils to dilate with laughter. They wait for the track mark smile. They isolate. They damn their ears as they turn you back to the one who listened. The one who heard.

Every path is missing stones.