HOME | DD

Description
Sometimes the hardest truths for you, and those around you, hit you at the strangest times.

Even the worst of these truths eventually become your own personal norm. You eventually realize that it may only be just that after telling people you get one of three responses:
1. A way in which the person tries to relate
2. They simply say "oh" and continue about the weather, and you really do not give a shit.
3. They apologize.

Now, it is the apology that I have discovered to be the hardest, after all, they are most likely not the dealer, and surely not forcing the needles into their arms. Why even apologize? It is common knowledge that 85% of apologies are faked, or does not mean nearly as much as the speaker wishes.

The apology is the response that makes you the angriest. I do not like to be reminded it is something that needs an apology. Be reminded that their affliction has become your burden to bear; whether you pretend you do not care. Their curse is somewhere planted in your soul like a small weed whose roots never stop growing, and after trying to pull it up for so long; you give up and just build a fence to section it off to be forgotten.

There are times in your life you should cry and certain when you should mourn. So you mourn time after time then eventually you become desensitized to the drugs, the tracks, the lies, and the apologies.

I go and sit on a couch that smells like human. A stench that cannot be scrubbed out or cleaned. It is like when something is about to die, it smells like death and there is nothing you can do. A flower smells like a flower, cookies smell like cookies, and drugs leave a smell that leaves you feeling dirty.
I listen to her tell me stories. I do not know which are true and which are fake. I do not even try anymore to tell the difference. I can feel her throwing the fishing hook into my body. She is desperately trying to hook me. She continues to talk trying to find the right bait. I listen and nod my head, smile, and sympathize a fake sympathy that is learned over time. I hug her and leave, she is desperate for a fix I can see it crawling around in her skin.

I get into my car and sigh. It is the sort of sigh that goes so deep and is filled with so many other sighs it hurts to exhale. It feels like it is going to suck me in, and leave me beaten and broken. I drive away numb.

When you let your mind wander it goes blank, it takes you to forgotten times and places.

I am 10 years old, sitting in the back seat of a car I do not remember anyone ever owning. I try desperately to wave at her.  I begin to feel betrayed and frustrated. It is not like the normal way when adults ignore you because you are a kid, no she does not see me. I worry I have become invisible. I begin to panic thinking what will my life be like now that I am invisible. I get out of the car. A cold wind chills me deep inside, it numbs my hands and I feel a strange sense of foreshadowing.  He is handing her a new set of clothes. I adjust my eyes and I can see my reflection in the window. I spend a minute focusing and un-focusing my eyes, like playing peek-a-boo with myself. I stare at them, and something inside is beginning to fade fast. I notice the other people. They are monsters with yellow teeth, gnarled teeth, pin marks and deep bruises that will never fade over their arms. I begin to realize who and what they are. It is fading faster as I look around. The only way for her to save it is by waving. I feel desperate, an utter sense of sheer panic, not the kind I felt when I thought I was invisible. It is as if I am drowning and I can see the lifeboat but it is just out of reach, she is my lifeboat.  She does not wave back, she cannot see me, and whatever was fading is now gone. She looks in my direction but does not see me, she can only she her reflection. I wonder what she sees staring back at her. She is looking at herself and through me at the same time. He turns to leave, and I run back to the car. I am numb from something new, I do not cry but I mourn for something I have lost tonight.

I arrive home not really remembering the drive. I feel monotone today, even though I do not think that is an emotion. I do not like days like this, too many memories, I have already mourned for, that I have locked away, are breaking free.
I begin to contemplate apologies, their meanings, their usage, their history. How many have I heard? How many have been uttered? What the most meaningful apology has ever been? Did Lucifer apologize years later, and would God forgive him? I have no idea where these questions are coming from or where they are going unanswered. I have a headache, or a migraine, or maybe its life knocking on the front door of my mind, so open the bathroom cabinet.

I am 12 years old, in a bathroom that I would spend much time hiding and crying in. I am going through a collection of lotions in the bathroom cabinet. I apply each one carefully, caking myself in manufactured fragrances. When you are young, it is the small stuff that makes you feel beautiful, like a woman. I guess that changes over time, or maybe it stays the same we just miss the little things. I dig deeper and deeper into a forest of aromas to find a hidden treasure in the back. It does not come in a little chest; no this is in a small plastic bag.  The contents are a dark green. I get a bad feeling; I have done something wrong, or found something wrong. I know instantly, without ever have seen it before, what it is. It is what leaves the bathroom smelling funny after the adults are in there a long time. It is what fills me with anger, without really understanding why I am.  I wish I had not found it. I feel dirty and ugly, caked in a lotions that have overlapped to create an over bearing smell. I place back someone else's treasure, and leave feeling dumb and ugly. I go to my room, I do not cry, I mourn for the loss of any shred of innocence I had left.

It would have been easy to deal with it a few more years, just a few more. A few more years of being able to blindly pretend that I was a child and knew nothing about what was going on around me. I knew what was going on, but I could have pretended I was wrong. That was taken from me the second I opened that cabinet door. Ignorance is bliss.

I shut my cabinet door. I look in the mirror to see a face I have avoided all day. I feel nauseas. I hear the phone ringing. I answer to hear a voice says "Hey did you get the email about al-anon?"

"Oh yeah, I haven't checked my emails in a few days. I will get back to you about that, I really would like to go." That is the last place you would ever see me. "Okay, just give me a call." The line goes dead. I will not go. To me they are memories, my life but the second I say it, it becomes a problem. I do not need to be reminded once a week where I come from, who shares my blood. I spend my whole life avoiding these people I do not need to fill my spare time caring about them.  When other people know, they apologize. It becomes too real, and there is no need to try to pull up those weeds now. I have built my fence, time to move on.
I eat something, it came in a frozen container, and I will label it chicken loaf. I was not hungry but it seems a waste not to fill the few hours left in the day with something, and chicken loaf is something. I watch TV, delete some emails with the word anon in it, and I am off to bed. I shred my clothes, and climb into bed. I lay there staring at the wall, blinking slowly.

As my eyes open, I am staring at a sponge-painted wall. I can hear the summer outside my window, and I am lying awake around the age of 13. He told me a promise; he said that when he got home he would try to find the pictures in the wall with me. I lay there, waiting. Something I did often for him, waiting. I wait, I stare, I wait, and I stare not seeing anything but a convex version of my wall. I can tell hours have passed. I hear him come home; as the door shuts quietly, I do not need to be near him to smell it, the smell of broken promise, and broken homes, the smell that destroys lives, and the smell that is my competition. He enters his room, not even opening my door, I will find the shapes myself then, I can find them alone, I do not need him, and I never would again. I do not mourn that night, I cry like the young girl I am. I cry because I know this would be the last time I would ever see shapes on my wall, this is the last time I would look for them, and this would be the last time I believed a promise.

As I un-blink my eyes, the clock reads 3:19, of course it does. I have time to go back to sleep, but I will not. I know what is waiting for me, the same dreams that smell like liquor, but act like heroin. They start in a euphoric state, but slowly the dream begins to crash down around me until I am standing there alone dealing with the pain. The dreams lift me up, and then throw me back to the ground, and I am lower than I was when I went to sleep.

I turn on the water and the sit down on the toilet to pee. I read a magazine as I sit there, waiting for the cold shower to warm up. I flush, damn it, now the water will be too hot. I stare at myself in the mirror as I undress, waiting for the shower to now cool down slightly. I have no visible track marks, they are internal, and I have guess I have one thing I can thank them all for, because of them I never had an addiction, I dealt with theirs all my life.

I step into the shower, and let the water run over. Every drop feels like it is tearing me apart, cutting deep into a person hiding underneath. It hurts, and I cry aloud. What am I doing to myself? Why am feeling this way today? I was fine all week, now I want to collapse. I do, I hit the porcelain hard, and I can barely tell when it begins and I end. I feel like the shower has swallowed me hole, and I am lost forever. I can feel the tears, and I can feel the drops and tears both digging deep into myself, trying so hard to pull at that weed. The deeper they dig, the more they unbury.  It all comes back like watching my life in fast forward, I am sure I am going to explode into a million pieces and be washed away into the drain. The time you borrowed money from me, I had saved up all summer. Did you feel like a man as you bought your needle-filled world your daughter's money? The daughter you left at home, never realizing she was slowly dying. Did you feel like a father as you bought your fix with my innocence and youth? My biggest problem growing up should have been what to wear to school, not watching you all slowly kill yourselves. I should have been able to be a kid; instead, I was protecting him from your addictions. I should have had a chance at something else. I watched you all play the victims, I listened to the yelling, and the cussing, and not one of you realized you were killing me. Every time you got higher, I died a more inside, until I broke. As I lay in a hospital wanting to die because of who I was, you did not seem to care. A five-minute phone call to complain that fact I never said anything about my problems to you. As if you would have listened, you were too busy having blinders on, all you could see was your next fix, all of you. All the times I believed the promises, all the wasted tears on you. I want so badly to hate you, but I cannot. All of the anger, all the fear, all the regret, blaming myself, torturing myself. Why was I not enough? I never was. I scream, and I scream, and I scream.  I hold my head back, I let it all wash away, and I have nothing to hold onto anymore, I scream those words. Those dreaded words and it the cruelest truest thing I have ever said. I scream I am sorry. Sorry of who you all are, and sorry that I will always hate you, I am sorry that I can never forgive you, am sorry you are fucked up and I am sorry I am, I am sorry this is the way life is, and I am sorry. I can feel the roots of something shake deep down inside.

Description
Sometimes the hardest truths for you, and those around you, hit you at the strangest times.

Even the worst of these truths eventually become your own personal norm. You eventually realize that it may only be just that after telling people you get one of three responses:
1. A way in which the person tries to relate
2. They simply say "oh" and continue about the weather, and you really do not give a shit.
3. They apologize.

Now, it is the apology that I have discovered to be the hardest, after all, they are most likely not the dealer, and surely not forcing the needles into their arms. Why even apologize? It is common knowledge that 85% of apologies are faked, or does not mean nearly as much as the speaker wishes.

The apology is the response that makes you the angriest. I do not like to be reminded it is something that needs an apology. Be reminded that their affliction has become your burden to bear; whether you pretend you do not care. Their curse is somewhere planted in your soul like a small weed whose roots never stop growing, and after trying to pull it up for so long; you give up and just build a fence to section it off to be forgotten.

There are times in your life you should cry and certain when you should mourn. So you mourn time after time then eventually you become desensitized to the drugs, the tracks, the lies, and the apologies.

I go and sit on a couch that smells like human. A stench that cannot be scrubbed out or cleaned. It is like when something is about to die, it smells like death and there is nothing you can do. A flower smells like a flower, cookies smell like cookies, and drugs leave a smell that leaves you feeling dirty.
I listen to her tell me stories. I do not know which are true and which are fake. I do not even try anymore to tell the difference. I can feel her throwing the fishing hook into my body. She is desperately trying to hook me. She continues to talk trying to find the right bait. I listen and nod my head, smile, and sympathize a fake sympathy that is learned over time. I hug her and leave, she is desperate for a fix I can see it crawling around in her skin.

I get into my car and sigh. It is the sort of sigh that goes so deep and is filled with so many other sighs it hurts to exhale. It feels like it is going to suck me in, and leave me beaten and broken. I drive away numb.

When you let your mind wander it goes blank, it takes you to forgotten times and places.

I am 10 years old, sitting in the back seat of a car I do not remember anyone ever owning. I try desperately to wave at her.  I begin to feel betrayed and frustrated. It is not like the normal way when adults ignore you because you are a kid, no she does not see me. I worry I have become invisible. I begin to panic thinking what will my life be like now that I am invisible. I get out of the car. A cold wind chills me deep inside, it numbs my hands and I feel a strange sense of foreshadowing.  He is handing her a new set of clothes. I adjust my eyes and I can see my reflection in the window. I spend a minute focusing and un-focusing my eyes, like playing peek-a-boo with myself. I stare at them, and something inside is beginning to fade fast. I notice the other people. They are monsters with yellow teeth, gnarled teeth, pin marks and deep bruises that will never fade over their arms. I begin to realize who and what they are. It is fading faster as I look around. The only way for her to save it is by waving. I feel desperate, an utter sense of sheer panic, not the kind I felt when I thought I was invisible. It is as if I am drowning and I can see the lifeboat but it is just out of reach, she is my lifeboat.  She does not wave back, she cannot see me, and whatever was fading is now gone. She looks in my direction but does not see me, she can only she her reflection. I wonder what she sees staring back at her. She is looking at herself and through me at the same time. He turns to leave, and I run back to the car. I am numb from something new, I do not cry but I mourn for something I have lost tonight.

I arrive home not really remembering the drive. I feel monotone today, even though I do not think that is an emotion. I do not like days like this, too many memories, I have already mourned for, that I have locked away, are breaking free.
I begin to contemplate apologies, their meanings, their usage, their history. How many have I heard? How many have been uttered? What the most meaningful apology has ever been? Did Lucifer apologize years later, and would God forgive him? I have no idea where these questions are coming from or where they are going unanswered. I have a headache, or a migraine, or maybe its life knocking on the front door of my mind, so open the bathroom cabinet.

I am 12 years old, in a bathroom that I would spend much time hiding and crying in. I am going through a collection of lotions in the bathroom cabinet. I apply each one carefully, caking myself in manufactured fragrances. When you are young, it is the small stuff that makes you feel beautiful, like a woman. I guess that changes over time, or maybe it stays the same we just miss the little things. I dig deeper and deeper into a forest of aromas to find a hidden treasure in the back. It does not come in a little chest; no this is in a small plastic bag.  The contents are a dark green. I get a bad feeling; I have done something wrong, or found something wrong. I know instantly, without ever have seen it before, what it is. It is what leaves the bathroom smelling funny after the adults are in there a long time. It is what fills me with anger, without really understanding why I am.  I wish I had not found it. I feel dirty and ugly, caked in a lotions that have overlapped to create an over bearing smell. I place back someone else's treasure, and leave feeling dumb and ugly. I go to my room, I do not cry, I mourn for the loss of any shred of innocence I had left.

It would have been easy to deal with it a few more years, just a few more. A few more years of being able to blindly pretend that I was a child and knew nothing about what was going on around me. I knew what was going on, but I could have pretended I was wrong. That was taken from me the second I opened that cabinet door. Ignorance is bliss.

I shut my cabinet door. I look in the mirror to see a face I have avoided all day. I feel nauseas. I hear the phone ringing. I answer to hear a voice says "Hey did you get the email about al-anon?"

"Oh yeah, I haven't checked my emails in a few days. I will get back to you about that, I really would like to go." That is the last place you would ever see me. "Okay, just give me a call." The line goes dead. I will not go. To me they are memories, my life but the second I say it, it becomes a problem. I do not need to be reminded once a week where I come from, who shares my blood. I spend my whole life avoiding these people I do not need to fill my spare time caring about them.  When other people know, they apologize. It becomes too real, and there is no need to try to pull up those weeds now. I have built my fence, time to move on.
I eat something, it came in a frozen container, and I will label it chicken loaf. I was not hungry but it seems a waste not to fill the few hours left in the day with something, and chicken loaf is something. I watch TV, delete some emails with the word anon in it, and I am off to bed. I shred my clothes, and climb into bed. I lay there staring at the wall, blinking slowly.

As my eyes open, I am staring at a sponge-painted wall. I can hear the summer outside my window, and I am lying awake around the age of 13. He told me a promise; he said that when he got home he would try to find the pictures in the wall with me. I lay there, waiting. Something I did often for him, waiting. I wait, I stare, I wait, and I stare not seeing anything but a convex version of my wall. I can tell hours have passed. I hear him come home; as the door shuts quietly, I do not need to be near him to smell it, the smell of broken promise, and broken homes, the smell that destroys lives, and the smell that is my competition. He enters his room, not even opening my door, I will find the shapes myself then, I can find them alone, I do not need him, and I never would again. I do not mourn that night, I cry like the young girl I am. I cry because I know this would be the last time I would ever see shapes on my wall, this is the last time I would look for them, and this would be the last time I believed a promise.

As I un-blink my eyes, the clock reads 3:19, of course it does. I have time to go back to sleep, but I will not. I know what is waiting for me, the same dreams that smell like liquor, but act like heroin. They start in a euphoric state, but slowly the dream begins to crash down around me until I am standing there alone dealing with the pain. The dreams lift me up, and then throw me back to the ground, and I am lower than I was when I went to sleep.

I turn on the water and the sit down on the toilet to pee. I read a magazine as I sit there, waiting for the cold shower to warm up. I flush, damn it, now the water will be too hot. I stare at myself in the mirror as I undress, waiting for the shower to now cool down slightly. I have no visible track marks, they are internal, and I have guess I have one thing I can thank them all for, because of them I never had an addiction, I dealt with theirs all my life.

I step into the shower, and let the water run over. Every drop feels like it is tearing me apart, cutting deep into a person hiding underneath. It hurts, and I cry aloud. What am I doing to myself? Why am feeling this way today? I was fine all week, now I want to collapse. I do, I hit the porcelain hard, and I can barely tell when it begins and I end. I feel like the shower has swallowed me hole, and I am lost forever. I can feel the tears, and I can feel the drops and tears both digging deep into myself, trying so hard to pull at that weed. The deeper they dig, the more they unbury.  It all comes back like watching my life in fast forward, I am sure I am going to explode into a million pieces and be washed away into the drain. The time you borrowed money from me, I had saved up all summer. Did you feel like a man as you bought your needle-filled world your daughter's money? The daughter you left at home, never realizing she was slowly dying. Did you feel like a father as you bought your fix with my innocence and youth? My biggest problem growing up should have been what to wear to school, not watching you all slowly kill yourselves. I should have been able to be a kid; instead, I was protecting him from your addictions. I should have had a chance at something else. I watched you all play the victims, I listened to the yelling, and the cussing, and not one of you realized you were killing me. Every time you got higher, I died a more inside, until I broke. As I lay in a hospital wanting to die because of who I was, you did not seem to care. A five-minute phone call to complain that fact I never said anything about my problems to you. As if you would have listened, you were too busy having blinders on, all you could see was your next fix, all of you. All the times I believed the promises, all the wasted tears on you. I want so badly to hate you, but I cannot. All of the anger, all the fear, all the regret, blaming myself, torturing myself. Why was I not enough? I never was. I scream, and I scream, and I scream.  I hold my head back, I let it all wash away, and I have nothing to hold onto anymore, I scream those words. Those dreaded words and it the cruelest truest thing I have ever said. I scream I am sorry. Sorry of who you all are, and sorry that I will always hate you, I am sorry that I can never forgive you, am sorry you are fucked up and I am sorry I am, I am sorry this is the way life is, and I am sorry. I can feel the roots of something shake deep down inside.