Addiction Will Never Hold Me
In dreams, I dance with his ghost in the kitchen of my childhood home. He sways between Conway Twitty and Elton John lyrics. The streetlights out the window are starting to look like stars. I find home in the white noise between the falling rain, and the passing cars on busy streets; reminders of summer nights when he claimed to love, and I still believed. Now, he is just an apparition with a pulse; A manifestation of years of consumption. The alcohol that once made its presence known on his breath and in holiday home videos has been replaced with pretty little pills and ugly mood swings. Home has become nothing more than a mausoleum of bad memories.
A deceased childhood friend haunts the pages of my notebook. She still exists in the scribbles and doodles in the margins, along the edges of my sanity. She makes her presence known in classical music, and my own drunk poetry. Her drawings of lovers and monsters are where my envy resides. I can’t help but wonder where creative energy goes when its host dies. What an unfortunate price to pay. Her voice was always ringing through homes and telephone lines, full of Hey, Hi, Hellos but never prepared for the Goodbyes. Syringes full of desperation, brought nothing but black skies. I can’t help but question, on my darkest days, where do you go when you’re gone, after gambling with every chance that the Universe gave for so long?
My late Aunt lingers in the reflection of my own brown eyes. I can’t help but wonder if hers saw the same darkness as mine. Do my shadows even compare? When people look into my eyes, do they see the potential repetition of her own fate there? Are genetics stronger than free will? All I know is, traces of her laughter still linger in my own. Our personalities and beliefs are so unintentionally intertwined. Despite the distance of Heaven and Earth, in her, I have always found a home. Am I an echo of her existence, or did she simply foreshadow mine? In her absence, will my willpower withstand the tests of temptation and time?
Here, with you on the anniversary of your sobriety, I’m exactly where I want to be. I swear my heart stops, every time you wake from a dream, roll over, and look at me. There is so much light, and warmth there. To the riot of butterflies and lightening bugs inside of me, the darkness of your past cannot compare. But I know your demons still reside in the shadows beneath your eyes; Nestled in your exhaustion, on days when this life makes you feel just a little too much. Big hearts always feel just a little too much. How we choose to honor our emotions is what defines us; we can create, or self-destruct.
Addiction has left its fingerprints on my life,
but its hands
will never hold me.
I refuse
to let it in.
© Gina Clingan 2020
