I have met myself
in the aftermath.
In the blur of bottles,
in the smoke of bad choices,
in rooms I should have left,
in words I wish I could pull
back into my mouth
before they became knives.
I have watched alcohol
turn my pain into fire
and drugs turn my wounds
into doors I kept walking through,
even when they led me
somewhere dark.
For a long time,
I thought I was only hurting myself.
I didn’t see the hands
I was pushing away.
I didn’t hear the hearts
breaking quietly
because I was too lost
inside my own storm.
Addiction blinded me
and called it coping.
It dressed my destruction
in excuses
and taught me to survive
by becoming someone
I didn’t recognize.
But I see it now.
I see the cycles.
I see the patterns.
I see the version of me
that kept running
from the very pain
that needed to be held.
And I do not want
to keep returning
to the same ruins
and calling them home.
I want to break the spell.
I want to put the bottle down
and pick my soul back up.
I want to become someone
my future can trust.
Not perfect.
Not untouched by the past.
But honest.
Awake.
Willing.
I choose sobriety
because I am tired
of losing myself
to things that never loved me back.
I choose healing
because I am still here.
I choose myself
because somewhere beneath
all this wreckage,
there is a better me
waiting to breathe.
- The Night Writer
