I was only 8 when I met you
And like meeting any other new neighbor, I know nothing about you
And like any other 8 year old, my curiosity about you grew
I was only 8 years old when you planted your roots
And unlike anything I’d ever felt before, your presence alone gave a high
A relief so intense and sweet that if it could somehow be converted into honey, bees would no longer be going extinct because everyone would be rushing to save them
Yet, underlying depths of something inhumane still accompanied you
As if that sweet delectable sap suddenly left a toxic aftertaste that no amount of antidote could cure
But I was only 8 years old, and not knowing any better, having never fully understood or read the terms and conditions of your consequences, I fell for you
I fell like a baby bird leaving it’s nest for the first time
Confident, not because I didn’t know any better, but because I’ve always loved the feeling of falling
Yet, as time went on, I learned that falling meant eventually hitting the ground.
To preserve myself I began jumping from different angles, convincing myself time and time again that if I could just twist this way or turn that way just in time, I wouldn’t hit the ground
As if landing on a branch to soften the blow was any more efficient than taking a knockout punch to the gut instead of the head: both lethal, neither forgiving.
When I was 8 years old, I was baptized into a religion I barely had the recognition to explore.
A religion so ingrained into me that my very soul seemed to exhume the standards I was raised to believe
Although faith was a tricky subject, I clung to it as the only guide I had, as if the world had suddenly gone dark and someone had handed me a torch.
But the torch hadn’t come with a warning either.
No explanation of the sudden burn. And being only 8, I was still young enough to be the daring child who touched the hot stove
Naive enough to believe it wouldn’t hurt, and unaware of the burns left afterward
Because religion is more than an establishment, but in this world the establishment seems to find punishment more fit than forgiveness
But as an 8 year old, the world can be a flurry of torment due to the indescribable confusion of a simple feeling: guilt.
This concept, this emotion, this pain.
Revolving around a word I never quite understood
Growing up in a family of perfectionists, nothing was ever enough
I’m damn well convinced that if I were to solve world hunger, cure cancer, and simultaneously become the worlds richest man, my mother would without hesitation ask “so where’s your rocket science degree?”.
But as an immigrant she comes from a culture of pressure, and she grew up with not much more than a cupboard to sleep in
At 8 years old, I faced demands of sophisticated standards from the only two societal functions I belonged to: family and religion.
This, coupled with the ADHD, led to more than an 8 year old should ever have to face.
And so you took your roots, you dug deep, and ingrained yourself into me. As if my very soul, my very essence, was the fan that flamed the deceiving warmth of your misery.
You led me to believe that nobody loved me
In turn, I acted out as if nobody did
And because of that, I ultimately became someone I hated
Relationships that broke, promises that never saw their fulfillment, and hearts that mourned and slowly drifted away
My life became a haze of hatred and anxiety, the walls of which were like a maze, leading me around again time after time in circles
Before long the same paths that were down trodden became too familiar, and instead of seeking a way out I began to find ways to stay in
When trapped for long enough, what still hurts becomes a dull ache, the familiarity of which becomes the terrain you trust and know
The prison becomes comfortable after a while
I know because I became comfortable with you
Like a lover that I never wanted, the physical relief and affection that you seemed to grant me alone at night in the span of 5 fucking minutes suddenly became worth the pain of the next few days until the next urge came
Like a bull, all I could see was the shaded hues of red pleasure, completely oblivious to what was holding that red cape
Like a puppeteer you made me dance, always the same rhythm inside the same circle, and I let you lead me on
I am no longer 8 years old
I’ve been through a lot since I was
I loved those that I hurt
But I never learned to love the one I hurt most
Because how can you love yourself when you’re too busy trying to run from yourself
How can you be familiar with someone that you’ve never bothered to talk to
I have enough troubles introducing myself to others, how in the name of crippling anxiety am I to introduce myself to me?
Because I never took the time to know me.
I only ever took the time to know you
But what I finally came to realize, is that just because I know you, doesn’t mean that you know me
All those lies about being a coward, a monster.
All those stories you spun in my head, making me think that I was forever to be looked down on and never enough
All the times you made me believe that I would never be loved
Because I will love myself.
And you, you don’t define me
You’re just an addiction.
Not a quote today, just something I wrote in my spare time. It feels good to finally have some of this written down. Maybe I should pursue writing more. Please don’t judge it too harshly, it clearly could use some work, but this is pretty much just my raw ideas after a rough day with addiction and there wasn’t much in the way of editing put into it.
