Maybe somewhere between the hospital doors opening for the twentieth time and the smell of vomit I could never quite get out of the mattress. Somewhere between helping him bathe because he was too far gone to stand, cleaning up after him when he didn’t know what his own body had done, and answering messages from your family because he was too lost inside himself to answer them. I did all of that because I loved him. I continue to do so because I love him. Because even through the addiction, the depression, the fear, the anger, and the moments when I felt completely lost, I have never stopped seeing the person underneath all of it. I know he is sick. I know he is hurting. I know that addiction has taken pieces of him, and I have spent months trying to help him find his way back to himself because I love him.

Because I too had been in that same place. But instead of my parents and family continuing to coddle me, they asked me to leave. And at the time, I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t frustrated with them. I understood I had to face the consequences of my own actions. And maybe I wasn’t mad because I was so in tune with the fact that I was betraying them. I was hurting them. And I broke out of my selfishness.

Maybe it happened slowly. The way these things always do. You wake up one morning and realize you have been carrying someone else’s life for so long that you no longer remember what it felt like to carry only your own. For months, I watched someone I loved disappear into a bottle. I watched him become unreachable. I watched depression hollow him out. I watched addiction take pieces of him, one at a time, and I kept trying to gather them back up.

I took him to hospitals.

I took him to detox.

I cleaned up after him.

I housed him.

I financially supported him.

I answered for him when he could not answer for himself.

I became the person standing between him and the consequences of his own disappearance. And yet… I was still here after it all. Because I love him. And somehow, I am the one who is accused of causing it.

I don’t know how to explain what that does to a person. To spend months trying to keep someone alive, trying to help someone you love find their way back to themselves, only to be told that your presence is the reason they keep trying to destroy themselves. I trusted you because you made me feel safe. That is the part I keep coming back to.

I thought I could tell you the truth. I thought I could tell you how tired I was. How scared I was. How impossible it felt to love someone who was slowly vanishing in front of me. I thought you understood that I was not speaking from hatred. I was speaking from exhaustion. From fear. From the strange grief of watching someone you love become a stranger while still sleeping in the room next to you. And now I’m told that I am what fuels his drinking.

I don’t know what to do with that. I keep looking back at everything, trying to find the moment where I became the cause.

Was it when I took him to the hospital?

When I cleaned up after him?

When I paid for things?

When I tried to get him help?

When I asked him to stop drinking?

When I finally said I could not keep living inside the chaos of his addiction?

Was it when I had a boundary?

Was it when I finally became afraid?

Because I remember what happened when I did.

I remember being afraid of the person I had spent months trying to save. And still, somehow, the story becomes about what I did to him.

But the truth is, I have never stopped loving him. I have never wanted him to suffer. I have never wanted him to be homeless, incarcerated, or destroyed by his addiction. I have spent months trying to help him because I know there is so much more to him than the worst things that have happened while he has been sick. I know the person he can be. I know the person I love. And that is why I kept trying. That is why I continue to care. That is why even now, after everything, part of me is still hoping he gets the help he needs and finds his way back to himself.

Maybe you are scared. Maybe it is easier to find a person to blame than to stand in front of the truth of addiction and admit that sometimes love cannot save someone who is determined, even unconsciously, to keep destroying themselves.

Maybe it is easier to believe that I caused this than to accept that he has been sick for a long time. Because I was there. I was the one who saw it. I was the one who stayed close enough to see what everyone else could look away from.

When the police became involved, suddenly there was fear. Fear of jail. Fear of homelessness. Fear of what would happen to him. You told me you were scared for him. You told me that jail would be easier for you to accept than seeing him become homeless. You asked me to keep you updated.

So I did.

I told you because you asked me to. I told you because I thought you cared. I told you because I thought, for once, I did not have to carry the entire weight of what was happening alone.

And then the things I told you in trust became evidence against me. I became the person who was “fueling his drinking.” I still don’t understand what that means.

What am I supposed to have done? Was I supposed to stop caring? Was I supposed to let him sleep in his own sickness? Was I supposed to stop taking him to the hospital? Stop cleaning up after him? Stop answering his family? Stop giving him somewhere to live? Stop trying to keep him alive? Stop trying to help the person I love?

And if I had done all of that, would I have been less toxic?

I don’t know.

I have resentment.

I have anger.

I have grief.

But I also have love. I also have compassion. I have so much hurt that sometimes I don’t know where one feeling ends and the next one begins. But I don’t think that makes me toxic. I think it means something happened to me too.

I think everyone keeps looking at the person who is drinking and forgetting the people who are standing in the smoke. You are his family. I understand that. I understand why you love him. I understand why you are afraid for him. I understand that you want to protect him because he is your son and you love him. But I don’t understand how you can tell me that you care about me while telling him that I am the reason he drinks.

I don’t understand how I can ask for help when I am drowning. Ask for him to go home for a visit because I cannot carry one more day of this. And be told no. Again and again. But now, when there is the possibility of jail, suddenly there is urgency. Suddenly there is fear. Suddenly there is a willingness to step in.

And I am left standing in the middle of all of it, trying to understand why my pain only seemed to matter when it became connected to his consequences. I don’t know what you want from me anymore.

I don’t know if you want me to keep him alive, keep him housed, keep him sober, protect him from himself, protect him from the consequences of what he has done, and somehow never become tired.

Never become angry.

Never become hurt.

I don’t know where I am supposed to put my own pain.

I have spent so long trying to save someone who was hurting me that I think I forgot I was allowed to be hurt too. And maybe that is the part no one wants to see. That I did not wake up one day and decide to become angry. I became angry slowly. I became tired slowly. I became afraid slowly. I disappeared slowly. And now I am being asked to explain why I am no longer the same person who could keep absorbing all of this without breaking. I don’t know what you want me to do. I truly don’t.

I only know that I spent months standing at the edge of someone else’s darkness, reaching into it with both hands, trying to pull him back. And somewhere along the way, no one noticed that I was falling in too. No one noticed that I was trying to survive too. No one noticed that I needed someone to reach back for me the way I had reached for him. And maybe that is what hurts the most. Because I love him. I have loved him through things I never thought I would have to endure. I have continued trying to help him because I believe he is more than his addiction, more than his worst moments, and more than the things this disease has made him do. But I am also a person. And I cannot keep being asked to save him while everyone forgets that I am drowning too. So what am I supposed to do with all of that? Especially when we’re trying so hard to get back to who we once were? How is that support?

Should I collapse under the weight of sadness? Should I scream into the sky and ask God why He took her before we ever had the chance to really fix anything? Should I shatter plates against the wall for every moment she wasn’t the mother I needed? Or should I shrug and whisper to myself, “She’s gone…and maybe that’s easier”? None of these reactions feel entirely right, but they also don’t feel entirely wrong. Because the truth is, grief is complicated when love has been complicated. Hurt doesn’t exist in a vacuum it spirals, spreads, repeats. It grows out of old wounds, old memories, old traumas that were never healed.

Bobbie came into this world already fighting fighting life, fighting her pain, fighting her own emotions that were too heavy for one heart to hold. And she spent her years trying to survive those storms. The tragedy is that she ended up passing on the same hurt she carried, the same hurt she never had the tools or the love to escape. I ran from her because I learned to run. I feared her because I inherited her fear. I carried her anger because she never had the chance to put hers down. I repeated the same cycles she did…and now, I fear that when this numbness cracks open, I will ache for the times I rejected her calls, the years I hardened my heart, the moments I convinced myself that hating her protected me. I worry that I will have to forgive myself for not being able to love her better when she was alive.

But Bobbie was not only anger. She was not just the chaos she unleashed or the pain she passed on. Deep beneath all of that, she held a kind of fierce, complicated love the kind that doesn’t show up neatly but lives in the cracks and the broken spots. She loved with her whole chest, even if she didn’t always show it in the ways we needed or recognized. Sometimes her love burned too bright, sometimes it burned out of control, and sometimes it hid behind walls she didn’t know how to take down. She loved every child she had. She lost so much her children, her family, her spark, her home within herself. She lost things no person should ever have to lose, especially not all at once. If I had lived her life, with her wounds and her shadows, I don’t know who I would’ve become. I don’t know that I would have done any better.

And when I spiraled into my own darkness, when I numbed myself with substances, when anger poured out of me in ways that weren’t fair or kind, I had people who stayed. I had loved ones who held on because they were gentle, steady, safe. Bobbie never had that. The people who should have stayed…didn’t. She was left alone in her storms, and loneliness like that can break open a heart in ways that turn love into something sharp and heavy. I imagine she felt abandoned, misunderstood, numb and that numbness only made everything worse.

But she wasn’t only the hurt she caused. She was also the girl she once was, the woman she tried to be, the mother she wished she could’ve become. She was soft sometimes. She was kind sometimes. And she loved animals especially cats maybe even more than I do, and that says a lot. There was light in her, even if it flickered.

So Bobbie… I hope you are finally at peace now. I hope the weight you carried has lifted. I hope you’re with Israel, laughing, whole, loved the way you always deserved to be. And I hope that wherever you are, you know this: even through the anger, even through the distance, even through the confusion and the hurt and all the years we got wrong you were loved. You were loved by me, in ways I’m only beginning to understand.

Rest now. You don’t have to fight anymore.

Someone I love, someone who feels like a piece of my own heartbeat, has been struggling. It’s hard to watch, harder to stand beside it and not be able to fix it. I’d trade places if I could, carry the weight for him, take the ache out of his bones and put it into mine. But I can’t. And that helplessness sits in my chest like a stone. Because when he’s happy, the whole world shifts. The sun seems to lean closer, the air hums differently. His laugh fills the space like music, and his smile is the kind of thing that can stop a storm mid spin. With him, I forget to be afraid of anything. With him, the world feels lighter, simpler, almost safe.

But lately, the light has dimmed. We got some news, not bad, just big, the kind that changes the air around you. It’s exciting and terrifying all at once, like standing on the edge of something beautiful and not knowing if you’ll fall or fly. And though part of me still feels that spark of excitement, another part feels like I’m stepping into it alone. The days have grown colder, the air thinner, and I find myself gasping for something I can’t quite name. I had pictured this next chapter as a story we’d write together, side by side. Now it feels like the pages have turned without me noticing, and I’m the only one holding the pen.

He’s sinking into something deep and quiet, and no matter how much I reach for him, my hands come up full of air. I keep trying to dig him out, scoop away the dirt, pull him back toward the light but the more I try, the deeper he seems to slip. And somewhere in the ache of all that effort, I’ve started to realize something painful but true… I can’t save him. I can love him, I can stand by him, I can remind him that there’s still beauty waiting, but I can’t climb the mountain for him. He has to want the summit himself. Maybe by trying to carry him, I’ve been keeping him from learning how to walk again. Maybe love, real love, isn’t about saving someone, it’s about believing they’ll save themselves.

Still, that doesn’t make it easy. I miss the version of him who made every ordinary day feel extraordinary. The one who made me laugh until I forgot what I was sad about. The one who looked at the world like it was worth the fight. When he loves, he does it with every cell in his body, and when you’re loved by him, you know it. I wish he could see what I see, the way his family lights up around him, how deeply they love, how fiercely they fight for him. I’ve never seen a love like theirs. And maybe, in some strange way, I’ve been standing in the middle of that love, trying too hard to keep it together when what he really needs is space to heal on his own.

But that’s the terrifying part…stepping back. Letting go feels like leaving. It feels like watching the plans you built together dissolve into mist. It hurts in ways I didn’t think love could hurt. It leaves me standing in a room full of echoes, holding memories that still feel warm. For a while, that emptiness made me feel helpless, hopeless, like I was walking through a world without color.

And yet despite all that there’s light seeping back in. Slowly, quietly, like sunrise through the blinds. I’ve found new pieces of myself I thought I’d lost. I got a new job, one that makes mornings feel lighter, one that makes me excited to wake up. I laugh with customers, help them find things that make them feel like their best selves, and in the middle of all that joy, I catch myself smiling too. I leave at the end of the day tired, but full, a kind of full I haven’t felt in a long time.

I’ve been spending more time with my friends, showing up for life again. I’ve shared my news, and though it stings that he can’t celebrate it with me right now, my friends do. They show up with laughter and warmth and remind me that love doesn’t always look the same it stretches, reshapes, finds new ways to hold you. And I’m learning not to take any of it for granted.

Maybe that’s the quiet lesson in all of this: that sometimes life unravels so it can be rewoven stronger. That even when something breaks, there’s still beauty in the pieces. That pain doesn’t mean the story’s over, it just means there’s more to come. I’m learning to trust the timing of things, to see the bright edge even in the dark. Hope still lives here, even in the quiet. I know this isn’t the end of our story, I’m still in his corner, maybe this is just an interlude before the light returns. Because I believe it will. It always does.

I worry if I’m on the right path,
or walking in circles, chasing my past.
I worry if progress is just disguise,
if I’m fooling myself with borrowed highs.
I worry I give more than I should,
and I wonder if that’s misunderstood.
If my love’s a virtue or a flaw,
a gift of grace or the rope that saws.

I worry about mirrors,
their cruel, clinical truth.
They don’t lie
they measure youth.
I worry if you find me enough,
when beauty’s the currency, love is rough.
When society’s ghosts crawl through your head,
and whisper of others who shine instead.

Because since I was young, I’ve been taught by design,
that worth was a number, a waist, a line.
That love’s not given, it’s earned through appeal,
that perfection performs, and flaws must conceal.
It’s analytical, this pain I feel,
a pattern I’ve studied, a wound that won’t heal.

I know the data, I’ve run the test,
the ones who love hardest are hurt the best.
The ones who stay loyal, who fight, who care,
end up gasping for air in love’s thin air.
And yet, I still love with my whole damn spine,
break myself to keep yours aligned.
I will climb, crawl, carry, bend,
I will fight to the death if it means you’ll mend.

I will take the bullets you aim through grief,
I’ll bandage your wounds and swallow belief.
Because I am the healer, the forgiver, the friend,
the one who breaks first, and still loves at the end.
I’ll answer rage with hands that hold,
I’ll stay when your warmth runs bitter cold.
And I’ll tell myself it’s noble pain,
to stay so long in the acid rain.

But love,
what good is devotion when it empties the soul?
What use is repair when it takes its toll?
I call it compassion, but maybe it’s fear…
the terror of silence when you’re not near.
The horror that my love could die,
and with it, so would I.

You say my name …“Sarah.”
So sharp. So clean.
And I feel the divide cut through the scene.
It’s me versus you.
The love turned math.
The variables clash, the data’s wrath.
It’s analytical, this dissection of ache,
love as experiment, heart on a stake.

I study your tone like a scientist might,
charting affection against the night.
I analyze distance, I calculate pause,
search for the why beneath the flaws.
It’s tragic, really, how logic and love
fit together like hand and glove.
You hurt me, and still, I stay aware,
of why I stay, of why I care.

Maybe I’m built from cause and effect,
the product of love that bruised by neglect.
Maybe I’m proof of a paradox true…
that the ones who love deepest destroy themselves too.
That empathy’s curse is never returned,
that care unreciprocated burns.
And I’ve learned that pain repeats like art,
every brushstroke from a broken heart.

You see, I’ve charted this feeling,
mapped the ache.
It starts in the chest,
then moves to the ache
in the jaw, the throat, the hands that shake.
It spreads like science, but feels like faith,
an endless loop I can’t escape.

I’ve graphed devotion, it’s not a line,
it’s an orbit, endless, by design.
I spin around your gravity,
losing my identity to your stability.
I study the slope of your moods, your sighs,
the data points hidden in your eyes.
And still, even knowing the trend’s unkind,
I’d rather be yours than sane in mind.

Because what is logic without the heart?
A sterile equation that keeps us apart.
And what is love if not a test,
of how much pain we can digest?
I’ve made peace with my paradox now…
I am both the scientist and the vow.
I study the cracks and still call it grace,
I bleed through logic to stay in place.

But love,
I’m tired of analysis dressed as hope,
of loving you just to help you cope.
I’m tired of shrinking to make you bloom,
of dimming my sun to light your room.
I deserve the same softness I give away,
the same gentle hand at the end of the day.

Because I worry… yes, always will…
but I’m learning to let the noise be still.
To love myself through the data and doubt,
to quiet the storm I can’t live without.

I will always be loyal, maybe to a fault,
a heart wired for empathy by default.
But I’m done mistaking my ache for grace,
done worshiping ghosts in your face.

Still …
if you ever wonder what love can do,
what it costs, what it builds, what it burns through,
just look at me.
The sum of my fear, my fight, my trust,
the anatomy of a woman
who loved enough
to turn worry into dust.

I lie awake listening to ghosts,
to what-ifs,
to the sound of your lungs in my imagination
wondering if they still rise,
if tonight’s the night your body decides
it can’t hold the weight of what you poured inside.

Worry makes a home in my gut,
an ache that won’t leave,
a stone I keep swallowing.
I sneak out at 2 a.m.
to press my ear to your chest,
to hold a mirror under your nose,
to beg the universe for the mist of life to appear
because I’ve been to the hospital too many times,
walked too many white halls,
heard the machines sing songs of maybe,
maybe not.

I’ve seen you beg.
Eyes wide, shaking hands,
pleading like a child
“Just one more shot. Just one more swig.”
As if salvation could be found
in the bottom of a bottle.
As if love lived in the burn of tequila.
As if tomorrow might hurt less if today ends in blur.

And it breaks me
not because you’re weak,
but because I know the beast has its teeth in you,
because I know addiction is a puppeteer,
and you are dancing,
strings tangled,
feet bloody on the stage floor.

I am not angry.
I could never be angry at you.
Only at the disease,
the shadow that steals your light
and sells it back in sips.
I’m not mad at your trembling hands,
I’m mad at the poison that made them tremble.
I’m not mad at your broken promises,
I’m mad at the monster whispering them into your ear.

And all the while,
I see my parents in the reflection.
I see the nights they spent pacing,
checking if I was breathing,
wondering if their baby would make it
to sunrise.
I see their tears in mine.
I see their prayers in my shaking hands.
And I love them deeper now,
because I understand the courage it takes
to let your child stumble,
to watch them drown but not jump in,
because you know if you do,
you’ll both sink.

That’s the hardest part of love…
to let go.
To unclench the fist around the bird’s wing
and trust that sky will do
what cages never could.
To say…
“I cannot save you.
But I will love you.
And my love will not vanish,
even if you do.”

Because love isn’t control.
It isn’t chaining you to sobriety
or screaming truth into deaf ears.
Love is waiting at the shoreline,
lantern lit,
while you wander the storm.
Love is whispering,
“Come back when you’re ready to breathe,”
and believing
even when believing feels like foolishness
that you will.

I’ve seen you collapse.
I’ve seen you claw at IVs,
rip them out of your arm
as if they were lies being fed into your veins.
I’ve heard you beg for discharges,
then cry for them to stay.
I’ve watched you sign papers for help
and watched you tear them up the next day.

And every time,
my heart is a tapestry unraveling,
threads snapping one by one.
But still
still
I choose compassion.
Because love without compassion
is a prison.
Because love without compassion
is just another leash.

So I let go.
I let go not because I don’t care,
but because I do.
I let go because if I hold too tightly,
I crush you under the weight of my fear.
I let go because my parents did,
and I am still here.

You are not my control.
You are not my cure to make.
You are not a puzzle to solve,
a wound to stitch,
a child to cradle forever.

You are your own body,
your own choices,
your own battle.
And I…
I am your witness,
your cheerleader from the sidelines,
your quiet hand reaching out when you’re ready.

It is the paradox of love…
that to keep you,
I must release you.
That to love you fiercely,
I must stand back.
That sometimes the most radical act of devotion
is to unclasp the chains I built
from my fear of losing you.

So I step back.
And it hurts.
God, it hurts.
But I believe
I believe there will come a night
when you are tired of drowning,
when you remember the taste of air,
when you claw your way back to shore,
skin torn, lungs burning,
but alive.

And when that night comes,
I will be here.
Arms open,
heart steady,
the way my parents were for me.
Not with judgment.
Not with anger.
But with love,
the kind that survived sleepless nights,
hospital visits,
one-more-swigs,
and every broken promise.

Love that survives it all.
Love that waits.
Love that lets go.

One second, it’s Wonderland,
a home carved soft out of someone’s hands.
A fortress of warmth,
a cushion so wide I could cannonball straight in,
and the only thing I’d feel is softness wrapping my skin.
It feels like a future…so radiant, so clear,
like a lighthouse blazing through the fog of fear.

But blink
and the world flips.
Whiplash.
Windows shatter.
The same glass I looked through with hope
now cuts me, jagged, relentless, sharp.
I’m left catching my breath in pieces,
trying to stitch together what just ripped apart.

Because reality?
Reality doesn’t care.
It is stone.
It is cold wind clawing through bone.
It is cruel enough to make you trip over your own tongue,
make you regret words not even spoken wrong
just spoken raw,
spoken human,
spoken without a filter,
and suddenly the person you love
feels pierced by your truth.

that’s the tightrope.
Being yourself is fire and frost,
balancing between freedom and cost.
It’s walking barefoot across broken glass,
wondering which step will be your last.
It’s Russian roulette with words,
because sometimes they land soft,
and sometimes they land like bullets.

And when they do
you scramble,
not to hold them,
not to soothe them,
but to defend yourself.
You start spinning stories of “I didn’t mean it,”
gaslighting not out of cruelty,
but out of confusion,
out of panic,
because you were too busy choking on the weight
of the discomfort you caused,
instead of breathing into their pain.

And suddenly,
it’s not about your love,
not about your devotion,
not about the nights you held them
when your own chest was broken.
It’s about that one moment
that slip,
that sting,
that crack in the wall that made them flinch.
And shame
shame rushes in like a flood,
drowning the fire you tried to build.

And here’s the truth
I am terrified of losing.
Losing someone my heart has already chosen,
losing the arms that became my shelter,
losing the light that felt like home.
So I shrink.
I quiet.
I fold myself down to origami shapes,
small enough to not take up space.
I cut off my edges so I won’t cut you.
I dim my flame so it won’t blind you.
I trade my voice for silence,
just to keep you close.

But silence is a coffin,
and I’ve buried myself in it before.
And déjà vu creeps around the corner,
reminding me of old wars,
old scars,
different faces,
same wounds.
History loves to rhyme,
and sometimes love feels like
replaying the same song
on a broken record player
scratched vinyl skipping back
to the moment I was “too much.”

Different lips,
same look of discomfort.
Different hands,
same withdrawal of touch.
Different story,
same ending written in shame.

And I’m left asking
How can I be me,
when being me feels like a crime scene?
How can I hold your heart in my palms
without crushing it beneath my need to breathe?
How can I be enough
raw, unfiltered, alive
without being too much,
without being a storm
you never asked to survive?

Because I don’t want to lose you.
Not to pride,
not to pain,
not to the sharp edges of my name Sarahjames,
I don’t want that revolving door
to fling me out into the cold again,
to slam shut and lock,
leaving me on the other side,
hands pressed to the glass,
watching warmth move on without me.

All I want,
is to be safe in the fullness of me.
To be loud and loved.
To be messy and still enough.
To not have to trade authenticity
for a seat at the table.
To not feel like I’m swallowing myself whole
just to keep someone else fed.

Because love should not be
a shrinking contest.
Love should not be
a quieting of storms.
Love should be the umbrella in the rain,
the arms that say “pour,
pour if you need to,
I’ll hold the flood.”

So hear me now…
I am done burying my voice
in the soil of someone else’s comfort.
I am done cutting off pieces of myself
to make myself easier to love.
I am not glass.
I am not too much.
I am a flame,
a tide,
a universe unfolding.
And if I cannot be held in that wholeness,
if I cannot be safe in that fullness,
then I will walk away with my fire intact,
even if it burns me to ashes.

Because I’d rather be ashes
true, raw, unfiltered ashes
than a ghost in my own life,
silent in someone else’s paradise.

It’s not in the thudding of my heart,
that drum growing louder in a suffocating room,
not in the air thickening like wet cement poured into my lungs,
not in the way my chest begins to sink,
an anchor latching onto the ribs,
dragging every breath downward until it drowns in my stomach.

It’s not even when my throat closes
a pit filling, swelling, choking,
like a clogged drain where every thought circles and refuses release.

No…
the danger hides in the quiet.
It waits for me in the easy hours.
When the storm calms,
when the water looks glassy, forgiving,
that’s when the undertow pulls hardest.

It’s in the ease,
in the unguarded moments when I tell myself “I’ve got this,”
when I wear confidence like new boots, standing taller than I should.
It’s when I believe I’ve been good,
that good behavior deserves reward,
that survival deserves a prize.

That’s when the cliff edge greets me
not with a scream, but with a whisper.
That’s when I start to bargain,
telling myself I’ve crossed the finish line,
that I can coast across without consequence,
like pedaling a bike with a broken chain,
thinking momentum will carry me forever.

It’s when I believe the eyes have turned away,
that no one is watching,
that I can slip unnoticed,
that the spiral opens its arms.

And I fall
not with the violence of an explosion,
but with the softness of a slow collapse,
like a house sinking into its own foundation.
Everything I built crumbles quietly,
until all that’s left
is the hollow echo of what I thought I’d earned.

Loving him is not work; it is the abandonment of defense
a headlong dive where the sea is not a threat but a promise.
It is falling backward and landing somewhere that steadies you,
like being held under a warm faucet until your edges smooth.
His eyes are cartographers, mapping tides and storms:
light blue that bruises into green and gold,
streaks that spin like galaxies caught in glass,
pulling me in until I can’t tell if I am a faithless island or part of the shoreline.
When I look at him, I don’t see pupils,
I see maps, I see horizons, I see a geography that keeps returning.

His hands, revere and dangerous,
are lanterns with steady flames; they reach into me and find the rooms I locked.
When our fingers knot, the world exhales like it finally remembered to forgive.
His smile mirrors mine until I can’t tell whose laugh started which;
when he holds me, I become a harbor I thought only existed in tattered postcards:
a place where storms tire themselves out and go to sleep,
where shoulders unclench, where breath gets simple again, where being whole is not a surprise but an offered state.

I used to ration love like matchsticks,
counting the seconds and spending them like currency I never earned.
Love was a ledger of slammed doors and echoes,
a performance in which I wore laughter as armor and bright clothes like armor plating,
tried to outshine ghosts built from other women’s curated light.
I was unstitched, reassembled into someone else’s checklist,
my reflection a stranger wearing my name.

With AJ,

His laugh rings like birdsong at dawn,
the kind that slips under windows
and reminds the world to wake.
His smile
it is the sun itself,
rising not in the sky,
but inside me,
turning shadows into warmth.
And his silence is not absence.
It is not emptiness.
It is meadow.
It is rest.
It is the steady hum of two breaths meeting
without need for words.

With AJ, I am an unedited draft.
I am mud at the cuffs of his jeans, messy hair, lipstick on teeth, too loud and too soft at once
and still enough.
He arrives with his hands open, not to fix but to receive
holding my shards, my unpaid dreams, the parts I learned to hide between ribs.
His laugh wakes me the way birds used to wake the town: unpretentious and relentless.
His smile is less a thing than a weather pattern: it moves through me, clearing out the cold.
Silence with him is not a ditch; it is a field where two breaths meet and decide to keep time.

We play like children who remember how to forgive,
bicker like siblings who learned boundaries the hard way,
crash like lovers whose edges still sting,
map each other like explorers with terrible compasses and return like embers, always relit.
We carry the same kinds of scars: medicine in different bottles, stories that taste like iron.
Our hungers reflect each other like twin constellations, bright and injured and unbearably beautiful.

We bruise one another. We speak in ways that cut, and then we stand in the ruins and hand each other tape and swear to build.
Our love has no warranty. It is raw as salt on open skin, fierce and stubborn as tidewater carving cliff.
We do not want perfect, we want honest:
hearts left open in a weather that wants to teach closure.
The courage we ask for is simple and monstrous to stay when leaving would be easier, to show up even when the cost is pain, to be seen without the crowns we learned to wear.

And in the small, dangerous safety of that in the truth that holds us like a rope threaded through mud and fire,
we find the crack where forever leaks in.
We keep living, bleeding, laughing, forgiving; we keep showing up.
And in that relentless, tender defiance, we are infinite.

Calloused palms, shaking wrists, but steady.

A life split in two halves

one half, my foundation. Concrete. Unshakable.

The other half, my pillow. My safety net.

A place soft enough to land when the world cut too sharp.

And I was proud.

God, I was proud.

Proud that I carved something different.

Proud that I worked harder than I ever had

harder than when the nights bled into mornings

and sobriety pressed like glass against my chest,

fragile, sharp, but shining.

I was juggling meetings, therapy, a sponsor,

sixty, seventy hours a week

and somehow I was still growing something beautiful.

I felt whole. Centered.

Like I had found my rhythm,

my structure,

my meaning.

And I gave myself to that gym.

I put my neck on the line.

Did the work of ten people

me, with no training.

And not once was I propped up.

Not once was I thanked.

And I told myself that was fine.

Because I gave myself the acknowledgment they withheld.

Because I could clap for myself in the dark

and still keep moving.

But then

one slip.

One fracture in the facadee .

And they cut ties.

Like I was disposable.

Like the nights I stayed late, the hours I stacked,

the weight I carried on my own..meant nothing.

They knew.

My boss knew.

They saw me balancing early sobriety on trembling legs,

balancing healing with exhaustion,

balancing survival itself

and still showing up,

underpaid, overworked, torn down,

and I kept saying, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,

because I had purpose.

But then someone I love

someone who means the world to me

started slipping.

I saw him stumbling down a cliff I once stood on.

A dangerous cliff, steep and merciless,

the kind that swallows you whole if no one reaches out.

And I could not—would not

stand by and watch.

So I reached out my hand.

I poured my love into him.

Because he deserved it.

Because everyone deserves it.

Everyone deserves a hand when they’re falling,

a hug when their chest aches from the weight of it all.

So I stood by him.

I stayed when the sun came up,

and I stayed when it went down again.

Making sure he knew he wasn’t alone.

That he is loved. That he is cared for.

That he is worth helping.

Worth staying for.

Worth reminding again and again

you are not alone in this storm.

And when I asked for time

just a little time

away from the job I had poured my blood, sweat, soul into,

they gave me nothing back.

No grace.

No mercy.

No echo of the compassion I had lived and breathed.

And it hurts.

God, it hurts.

It rips me wide open.

It makes me feel like I ruined everything.

Like I fucked it all up.

Like maybe

just maybe

I’m failing.

My feelings as a child were larger than me. They swallowed me whole, spilling out in ways that left me and everyone around me overstimulated, exhausted. I never understood why one moment I felt fine and the next I felt detached, like I was floating outside myself, watching chaos unfold from a distance. I’d scream, throw, lash out, not because I wanted to hurt, but because I never felt heard. Never felt seen. Not by anyone… except her.

                                         Rachel.

She was one of the only people who ever truly saw me, the messy, complicated, unpredictable me. She didn’t dismiss my feelings, didn’t brush aside my pain, didn’t make me feel dramatic for hurting. She never rolled her eyes at my outbursts or shook her head in disappointment when I fell apart…or at least let me see that she had. But Instead, she stayed. Always.

She stayed when my voice got too loud, when my tears wouldn’t stop, when my anger came out sideways and I shot my words like bullets. She stayed when I felt unworthy of love, when I felt invisible, when the world around me seemed too big for me to breathe inside. She saw me, the raw, undone, vulnerable parts of me, and she didn’t turn away.

Rachel wiped tears off my cheeks when no one else even noticed I was crying. When I hid under the bed, trying to make myself disappear, she crawled under with me, unafraid of my silence, or the sounds of my weals. When sleep slipped away in the middle of the night, she slid under my covers, wrapped her arms around me, and held me so tightly the world felt safe again.

I was not easy to love. I know that. But she loved me anyway. Fiercely. Unflinchingly. With a patience that only someone with a heart like hers could carry. Even when I lashed out, even when I spoke words that stung, even when my actions gave her every reason to turn away, she forgave me. Always.

Her love is not fragile. It is the kind of love that bends without breaking, the kind that carries weight without collapsing. Her heart is steady, her loyalty unwavering, her protection fierce. She helped raise me. She shielded me when the world felt sharp and unbearable. She was my anchor when I was drifting, my vault when secrets felt too heavy to hold alone, my safety net when I stumbled, my safe place when I couldn’t find one in myself. She was my everything.

And she still is.

But life has a way of tangling even the strongest bonds, and there were years, long, aching years, when we drifted. We misunderstood each other, spoke in languages the other couldn’t translate. Our pain mirrored back at each other, jagged and unhealed, and instead of softening, I hardened. She carried her own storms, quiet battles no one could see, and I, lost in my own chaos, failed to notice.

Instead of standing by her the way she always stood by me, I turned away. I pinned unfairness onto her shoulders, blamed her for things that were never hers to carry. I envied her strength when I should have admired it, resented her growth when I should have celebrated it. I held her to standards I could never meet myself, asking for love and understanding that I wasn’t willing, or maybe wasn’t ready…to give in return.

I failed her. I failed our sisterhood.

When she needed me to be the one crawling under her bed, I stayed away. When she needed me to hold her through the night, I didn’t show up. When she needed me to wipe her tears and tell her she was not alone, I chose selfishness, anger, and distance. And that is a regret I will always carry with me. Because the truth is, she deserved better from me. She deserved the same unconditional loyalty she gave me, and I fell short.

But still, Rachel never left.

That’s the kind of soul she has. The kind that forgives more than most could, that gives even when she is empty, that keeps showing up even when she has every reason not to. She is strength, wrapped in gentleness. She is resilience, disguised as patience. She is love, pure and unconditional.

Rachel is not just my sister. She is the proof in my life that family is not defined by blood or by paper, but by presence. By choice. By the people who keep showing up, no matter what. She is the one who has walked with me through my darkest hours and guided me, sometimes with words, sometimes simply by example…back into the light.

She is the one who has taught me that you can be broken and still be beautiful. That you can carry regret and still move forward with grace. That you can walk through fire, bruised and scarred, and still come out carrying love in your hands. She has shown me that growth is always possible, that no mistake defines who you are forever, and that the truest measure of a person is not how they act when life is easy, but how they love when life is unbearably hard.

Rachel is my reminder that light exists, even when all I can see is darkness. She is my safe place, my constant, my mirror and my opposite all at once. She is my greatest teacher, my fiercest protector, and my forever hero.

And if I had to define her in one truth, it would be this, Rachel is love.

Anger
better than numb,
a pulse that proves I’m alive,
that we care,
that I care.

I don’t want this,
But I don’t know any other map
to tell me if I’m being played
and every move I’ve made
just deals me …

loneliness.

Maybe my truest joy
is in the silence with myself,
no one left to pull apart,
no mind to dissect under glass
just me,
finally unobserved.

walls closing in,

no windows,

no air.

Just thoughts flickering

like dying streetlights

on a road that never leads home.

Everything’s too loud to think,

but too quiet to scream.

And you ask,

How are you?

I say, I’m good,

and I smile

like it doesn’t tear something

to say that out loud.

But let’s be honest.

That’s what we do, right?

We stitch up the wound

before anyone sees the blood.

We wear laughter like armor,

just to hide

how bad it hurts

to be real.

Some nights,

I hit rewind like it’s muscle memory.

Go back to being little

bare feet on cold kitchen floor,

the hum of the fridge,

the hum of something safe.

My sister’s arms

wrapped around me

like a blanket warm from the dryer,

like the world couldn’t touch me

if she held on tight enough.

And for a moment,

I truly believed that.

Back then,

the whole world was

just the corner of the couch,

cartoons dancing on the screen,

my head tucked beneath her chin.

And I thought

if I stayed good,

if I stayed quiet,

if I took up less space,

then maybe bad things

wouldn’t find their way in.

God, I wish someone had told me

that love isn’t soft.

It’s not rose petals

and sleepy Sunday mornings.

It’s the bruises

you don’t show anyone.

It’s scraped knees,

silent nights,

a throat full of unsent messages.

It’s disappointment

that doesn’t leave

and choosing to stay anyway.

I wish someone told me

that trust is handing over

the most delicate parts of you,

the ones still trembling from the last time…

and hoping

praying

they don’t shatter them too.

But sometimes they do.

And you’re left

on your knees,

trying to piece yourself back together

with hands that won’t stop shaking.

change doesn’t arrive like a letter.

It crashes through the windows

like a storm you didn’t see coming.

It tears the photos off the walls,

burns the version of you

you spent years trying to become.

And then asks you to start again

barefoot in the wreckage.

As a child,

life felt like molasses.

Raindrops racing down car windows,

my reflection staring back

older somehow.

Like she already knew

the ache that was coming.

The world outside was a blur,

but I stayed still.

Eyes closed.

Heart locked.

Dreams folded tight

in a backpack I never unpacked.

I thought if I held on tight enough,

I could keep it all.

If I didn’t let go,

nothing could leave.

If I didn’t feel it,

it couldn’t hurt me.

But here I am,

hands full of broken things

that were never mine to fix.

Maybe that’s why

I cling so hard

to people, to places,

to fleeting moments

I wish could stay forever.

Why I overthink every goodbye

until I’ve said it a hundred different ways

in my head.

Why I love like floodwater

fast,

reckless,

unforgiving.

And fall like thunder.

Quiet at first…

then all at once.

I wish someone had told me.

But maybe

the truth had to come

with bloodshot eyes and cracked lips,

with prayers whispered

on cold bathroom tile.

Maybe I had to lose people

who promised they’d stay.

Maybe I had to lose parts of me

to understand

what staying really means.

It’s not easy.

It’s slow.

It’s heavy.

But it’s honest.

And even with these bruised hands

I’m still reaching.

Even with this voice

that shakes when I speak my truth

I’m still singing.

Even with a heart

stitched back together

more times than I can count

I’m still loving.

I’m still here.

maybe that’s enough.

Even still

I stay.

But I am not a mistake or any of them combined. I am someone who’s made a lot of them, sure. I’ve gossiped once… or a hundred times. I’ve flirted with men I had no business flirting with because I felt empty inside and needed someone else to convince me I was worth something. And yeah, I used to act entitled. I craved outside validation because inside I felt so small, so broken, so unworthy. That’s part of the reason I spent so much of my life numbing away the insecurities I had flooding my brain. I used to feel, to not feel, to be someone I wasn’t because I was so scared to just be. But people can change. I’ve changed. I’m not proud of the person I once was, but I also won’t pretend she didn’t exist.

She existed, and I’ve made peace with her. I’ve made amends. I’ve done the hard work. I’ve faced myself in ways that would make most people crumble. I’ve looked my ugliest truths dead in the face and said, “No more.”

I believe in change because I’ve lived it. I’ve seen what happens when someone stops running and starts rebuilding. That’s why I give second chances, because I want one too. Because I know what it’s like to be judged by your past, to be kept out of rooms you’ve worked your ass off to be invited into. I know what it feels like to have people burn bridges and watch you from the other side as if you’re not worthy of redemption.

But I don’t want to build a world of isolation, I want to build a village. I want people in my life, even if they’ve stumbled, because I’ve stumbled too. I’ve gotten back up. And I want to be surrounded by others who are learning, who are choosing growth, who are trying. Who are imperfect and have made mistakes. But are actively and truly trying to better themselves.

Trust is hard for me. It’s something I depend on. And when it’s broken even in the smallest of ways, it shakes me to my core. I’ve had people keep things from me, not to protect me, but to protect themselves. I’ve found out truths in moments of spite, during arguments meant to wound me, from people who wanted to hurt me more than they wanted to heal me. And that’s made me sensitive. It’s made me hyper aware of the little things, because sometimes something small to you is huge to me. I need to see the whole picture. That’s how I build safety. That’s how I build trust. And when that’s not honored, when my reactions are judged instead of understood, it makes me feel invisible. It makes me feel unimportant, like my hurt is too much or not enough. And that’s not fair.

Sometimes it’s hard to receive love when fear sits between the lines. It’s terrifying to be loved. To be seen fully. To be known. Especially when pasts looks so different from each other. Especially when I come to realize, my love doesn’t look anxious anymore

I’ve become avoidant.

When I get sad, I take space, sometimes too much. When I feel overwhelmed, I get quiet. And when anger is flying around the room, I don’t match it anymore I don’t fight fire with fire. I just… leave the room. I take space. I pray. I process. Sometimes, yeah, I avoid. It’s not the healthiest, but it’s how I stay sober. Because I know if I let myself spiral, if I sit too long in that place of pain and anger, I might not crawl out. And I’m not willing to risk that.

When they feel things intensely. When they’re angry, they really feel it. And I get that, I used to be that. It took everything in me to unlearn that, to respond instead of react. But just because I’ve changed my reaction doesn’t mean my pain isn’t there. It doesn’t mean I love any less. And when I’m told that my silence looks like apathy, it breaks something in me. Because it feels like my growth is invisible. Like I’m not being seen for who I am now. Like the love I’m offering isn’t loud enough to be real. But it is real. It’s just… different.

Love isn’t neat. It’s messy. It’s painful. It can feel so isolating, so misunderstood. But it’s also the most beautiful thing. It’s empowering. It makes the scary parts of life feel a little softer. It makes you feel like you’re not in this alone. And when you find someone you admire, someone who’s fighting their own demons, someone who loves you with all your cracks and all your quiet and all your chaos, it makes the world feel a little less intimidating.

Real love, is honest. It’s hard. especially when it’s hard. Even when it hurts. Because love isn’t about perfection. It’s about showing up, even with trembling hands and a past you’re still making peace with. It’s about building something out of the rubble, and saying: “we’ll figure it out.”

Together.

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And honestly, that kind of grief is its own weird, soul splitting category. It’s like mourning a ghost that still has a pulse. Someone I thought would always be around, maybe not always romantically, maybe not even as a constant, but someone whose presence felt like a sure thing. Someone I saw in my life’s blueprint. And now…

Our relationship, whatever you want to call it (friends? partners? pen pals with feelings?) was never smooth. It was chaotic, avoidant, emotional, quiet, and loud. We’d either be texting nonstop for days or not speak for weeks until one of us saw a funny Instagram reel that reminded us of our existence. It wasn’t consistent. But it was real. At least to me.

It started like a romcom. A literal meet-cute on a plane, with wine in a tiny plastic cup and banter that made my cheeks hurt from smiling. And I wish I could say I didn’t see the ending coming, but if I’m being honest, I did. Not in the moment, but soon after the trip in Chicago. The gaslighting, the vagueness, the feeling that I was more of a vibe than a vision for the future. I think I knew then that I was just a detour, not the destination. But man, I wanted it to be more. I wanted to be more. And maybe that’s what triggered my spiral. Maybe this ending, lining up with the end of that spiral, was the closure I needed. A full circle kind of heartbreak that doubles as a wake up call.

See, I get swept away in the story of it all. I’ll build entire futures in my head just to avoid the terrifying task of actually building one in real life. It’s easier to dream than to do. Especially when for most of my life, I numbed the fear with drinks and drugs so I wouldn’t have to feel the sting of disappointment if the dreams didn’t pan out. I know. Me? Scared? Who would’ve thought besides literally everyone who's ever seen my track record.

It’s always been easier for me to laugh things off. Put on some lip gloss, smile like nothing’s wrong, and hit my friends with a “Yeah, he’s great, things are cool!” or “Yeah I kind of fell apart last week, but I’m good now” like I’m casually narrating a minor plotline instead of admitting I’ve been crumbling inside. But I made a promise, one to myself and one to my sobriety, that I’d stop doing that. That I’d be real. So I have been. Terrifyingly, awkwardly, pants pissingly real.

I’ve told the truth even when it’s messy. I’ve owned my imperfections, my insecurities, my flaws and failures. I’ve stopped pretending to be this polished, unbothered girl and instead started showing up as myself. Quieter, sometimes. More open, always. Stronger in ways that aren’t loud. My heart is less fragile, my gut is becoming steel, and yeah I still cry sometimes, but I let myself now. I don’t pretend I’m not hurting just to make people more comfortable.

And part of that honesty is realizing that in my past, I did a lot of damage. I hurt people. I spiraled. I threw verbal daggers dipped in poison. I avoided. I closed people out when I should’ve let them in. And now I’m standing in the rubble of all that, holding a metaphorical broom, trying to help clean up what I can. Some people let me. Some don’t. And that’s fair. That’s their right. Some doors stay closed. Some were locked before I even tried to knock again. And it hurts. God, it hurts. But it’s also part of healing, knowing that not everyone will come back, even when you’ve done the work. And learning to forgive yourself anyway.

Forgiveness isn’t always about other people. Sometimes it’s about not carrying shame around like a backpack filled with bricks. It’s about not letting that shame dictate your worth. People are allowed to move on. People are allowed to say, “I forgive you,” and still choose not to keep you in their lives. That’s real. That’s valid. And still, it stings like hell.

I reached out to someone I hurt. I took accountability. I didn’t make excuses. They said they forgave me… and then they shut me out. And as much as I tell myself they’re allowed to, that doesn’t take away the feeling of rejection or shame. It doesn’t erase the grief of losing someone who, deep down, I knew might not stay forever, but I didn’t expect them to disappear.

So yeah. I’m mourning someone who didn’t die. Someone I thought I’d always be a little bit tethered to. Someone who taught me that people are fleeting, feelings are real, and if you don’t show up as yourself, your raw, awkward, perfectly imperfect self, you might spend your whole life pretending to be someone you’re not just to feel “worthy.”

And now? Now I’m learning how to be worthy just by being me. Messy, open, flawed, funny, soft hearted me. I don’t hide behind filters or fake grins anymore. I cry. I laugh. I ramble. I overshare. And I show up.

Southwest will always have a special place in my heart, not because they got me somewhere, or someone, but because they accidentally flew me into the biggest lesson of my life.

I’m exactly where I need to be. And I’m just really sorry two hearts broke in the process of getting here. But damn… isn’t that how the good stories start?

And I’ve got to start to realize that I’m not living in the past anymore. Since coming into the rooms, I’ve started to really look at those old wounds and uncomfortable patterns, including how I’ve defaulted to shrinking myself when I felt unsafe. Especially when my kindness or friendliness was misread, and I’d find myself cornered, messaged, or sexualized by men who couldn’t or wouldn’t respect a boundary. It’s made me question how I show up. It’s made me feel like I have to dim my light just to avoid being misunderstood. And that’s not fair. That’s not recovery.

This space is supposed to be a haven. For all of us. And letting the discomfort or behavior of others push me into silence isn’t okay. I want to take the rooms back. For me. For women like me. For anyone just trying to heal.

I’m choosing to rebuild my trust in women even when it’s scary. Even when my history tries to convince me otherwise. Because I know the women here aren’t the girls I knew in the past. Not everyone is the same. I’m not the same. My values, my perspective, my moral compass, all of it has shifted. I’m no longer shaped by fear or insecurity, It’s definitely not something I’m perfect at practicing but I’m making active progress with this. I’m standing in something real. Something authentic. I’m learning to ground myself in truth, not performance, and to trust that people do heal. That I can heal, even when; especially when I’m scared to show up as myself, speak my voice and stand in my own truth.

I’m opening myself up to the possibility of sisterhood. To expand my circle. To show up with the same warmth, but with boundaries that honor my growth. I’m giving control to my Higher Power and letting that guide who and how I connect. I want to form real relationships with women who are walking this same path, who know what it means to rise out of the wreckage.

I’m here to heal. To connect. To be seen for who I am, not who someone else thinks I am, and not some version of me I think I have to be to be liked or accepted. I’m not trying to be the girl who looks like she has it all together. I’m just trying to be me. And I’m not going to keep shrinking or staying quiet just to make other people more comfortable. I’m learning how to stand tall in my recovery, and it’s not okay that some men have made me feel like I have to apologize for that. What’s worse is that sometimes I start to believe that I should. That maybe I am doing too much, or being too friendly, or bringing it on myself somehow. But that’s just fear talking. And I don’t want to live in that place anymore.

I’m writing this because I know I’m not the only woman who’s felt this way who’s wanted to connect but didn’t know how, who’s been nervous to go up to another woman in the rooms and say hi. I’ve spent a long time feeling that way. Honestly, I still do. But I’m choosing to do it afraid, anyway. Because you never know, maybe the girl sitting across the room wants the same thing. Maybe she’s just waiting for someone to go first. And maybe that someone gets to be me.

That moment cracked something deep inside me. It told me loud and clear, my body was not mine. My voice didn’t count. My safety was never a priority.

And it didn’t stop there. The word “potbelly” still echoes in my head, shame wrapped around my stomach like a chokehold. My reflection never looked right. Not to me. I’d hear people say I looked one way, but I saw someone else, someone I didn’t want to see. I saw her. I saw shame. I saw a body I couldn’t escape.

So I did what I could to feel in control. I ran it off, starved it out, and punished myself into exhaustion. I tried to force my body into a version that felt worthy, clean, acceptable. But the world had already stolen so much. And when I finally got sick, when my body started shutting down, it felt like betrayal all over again. But this time, it wasn’t about an eating disorder. It was my body crying out after years of being ignored, hurt, and misunderstood. And still, it carried me. And now I’m starting to see it differently.

That my body was never the enemy; it was the battleground. And somehow, it survived.

Every scar, every cramp, every memory in my muscles isn’t proof of weakness; it’s proof that I stayed. That I fought. That I endured. I never got a say in what was done to me. But I do get a say in what happens next.

And now, I’m choosing to start again. Slowly. Gently. I’m learning to reclaim what was always mine. I am not what they did to me. I am not their cruelty. I am not their silence. I belong to me now. And that truth is powerful.

Loving my body might not come all at once. But I can honor it. I can learn to listen to its tiredness, to its hunger, to its softness, to its rage, to its joy. I can let it be exactly as it is. Because it’s mine.

This isn’t the end of this chapter. It’s the first time I get to start it on my terms.

I’m doing my best.
And yeah sometimes,
I slip.
Sometimes I stumble,
Trip over the laces I swore I tied tight.
Sometimes I stutter,
Say the wrong thing,
Hurt the right people.

Sometimes,
I react before I breathe,
Before I hear.
Before I see the heart behind the words.

But here’s the thing
Sometimes I take two steps forward,
And one step back
But I'm still moving.
Still reaching.
My eyes stay on the prize.
And no, I won’t get it perfect.
Not every day.

I’ll mess up.
I’ll fall flat.
I’ll land hard.
But I’ll always get back up.
I’ll never follow those old hidden footsteps that led to my demise,

This time
I’m carving a new road.
Brick by brick.
Breath by breath.
Fall and rise and fall again.

I’m doing my best.
My goal isn't perfection.
It’s progress.
Always hasn’t always been.
Now it always will be.

Life is funny, isn’t it?
Not ha-ha funny.
More like holy shit, how did I get here funny.
Because growth…
Growth is a courtroom.

You walk in thinking you’re the defense.
Slick.
Confident.
Smug, even.
Like you cracked the code no one else could.
You think you’re not your mom.
You think your blood isn’t boiling with the same ghosts.
You think you’re in control.

But the prosecution?
She’s been quietly building a case.
Out of patterns.
Out of history.
Out of trauma you didn’t ask for.

See, I knew my mom’s story.
Bobbie.
She was high the whole time she carried me.
Her body was a war zone.
Her mind? A haunted house with no exits.
She didn’t get to say no.
She didn’t get to be safe.
So she used.
She numbed.
Because when your soul is burning, escape looks like salvation.

And I swore to myself that I’d never be her.
I swore I’d stay safe.

I knew addiction lived in my DNA.
Like a switch just waiting to be flipped.
So I stayed away from the “hard” stuff.
Weed only.
Weed’s not addictive.
It’s chill. It’s social. It’s fine.

At first it was weekends.
Then it was weekdays.
Then it was every day.

I was upset?
Pack a bowl.
Lonely?
Smoke.
Hungry?
Smoke first then I could eat without guilt.
It was a routine.
A rhythm.
A way to keep the noise down.

It wasn’t addiction.
It was comfort.
It was mine.

Until it wasn’t.

Then came the parties.
Then came the bumps.
Then came the lies I told myself like lullabies.
“I only do it socially.”
“I don’t even buy it.”
“I share. Addicts don’t share.”

Until I did buy it.
Until I didn’t share.
Until I kept one bag for me, just in case.

Until I stopped starting my days with coffee.
And started with lines.
Still in bed.
Still lying.

And I thought,
Okay…fine.
I’ll quit blow.
I’ll switch.
I’ll find something better.

Something that helps.

Glass.

Cheaper.
Stronger.
Thinner.
Longer.

I told myself,
“I’m not smoking it.
Addicts smoke it.”

Even when the nosebleeds started.
Even when my eyes turned red.
Even when my face split open from sores.
Even when it felt like knives behind my eyes.
I used.

Because I needed it.
To feel something.
Or nothing.
Or both.

And I told myself,
“I’m fine.
I have friends.
I have a roof.
I’m still cute.”
Even with scabs on my wrists.
Even when I quit my job just to stay high with no one watching.

And I always thought I’d die young anyway.
So if it was drugs that took me,
At least I’d die skinny.

But addiction?
She’s not loud.
She doesn’t kick in your door.
She puts her hand in yours and calls it comfort.
She mimics your voice.
She becomes your reflection.
And you don’t even know you’re gone.

Until you wake up…
And you’re her.
You’re Bobbie.

Using to bury what they did to your body.
Using to forget how love once hurt so bad it left bruises on your spirit.
Telling yourself it’s just to “be social.”
Quitting everything good because it’s easier to disappear.

And the worst part?

You still think you’re not like her.

But you are.

Not because you’re weak.
But because no one taught you how to carry the pain without drowning in it.

Addiction doesn’t just live in bloodlines.
It grows in silence.
In shame.
In all the ways we say, “I’m fine.”

But I wasn’t fine.

And maybe just maybe that was the beginning.

Because the moment I told the truth
was the moment I started breathing again.

Recovery didn’t come with trumpets.
It came in whispers.

In little choices.
Tiny rebellions against destruction.

I didn’t hit the stall.
I didn’t make the call.
I ate even when I hated myself.
I cried really cried, without covering my mouth.

And I realized…

I didn’t want to die anymore.

That maybe just maybe
this body I tried so hard to erase
deserved to stay.

That addiction wasn’t who I was.
It was how my pain asked for help.

Now I’m learning a new language.
Of staying.
Of choosing.
Of feeling.
Of healing.

And no healing doesn’t make the past disappear.
But it does build a future that isn’t chained to it.

I am not my mother.
But I am her daughter.
And I get to write the next chapter.

Recovery gave me more than my life back.

It gave me me.
Messy.
Alive.
Human.
Here.

And for the first time in my whole damn life
I’m not running.

I’m staying.
I’m staying.
I’m staying.

And that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever done.