I’m Four Years Sober From My Addiction To You And I’m Not Going Back

When we met, I felt nothing. This should have been my first warning, but who am I to let my mistakes interfere with what I truly care about? Because frankly, I knew what I was doing, and I knew that it was completely naive but you know, I did it anyway. For reasons beyond my understanding, I dove into the unknown, thinking that it would somehow mend me into an adult and finally move me forward into the life that I truly wanted.

It’s funny now – I’m 22 and reflecting on how at 17-years-old I genuinely thought I knew what was best for myself. The same way I believe in it now. But this isn’t about my growth or my current state of sanity, this is about us, why we broke and what the fuck I’m going to do to finally get the fuck over it. Your voice was foreign but safe, like I could melt from it but not feel a single care in the world. Your hands were rough and guided me into ordinary places which you made seem so incredible, as if I was rediscovering what it was to appreciate and explore and love. Soon, your hands were mine and your voice put me to sleep each night, hanging over me like a bedtime story as I left the world and dreamt of a place where I could listen to you speak for eternity.

But I tend to romanticize things as though they were better than they actually were.

You see, your hands weren’t mine after all. Your voice was nothing special and we were nothing more than punks; doomed into the longevity of naivety and mediocrity. And your hands led me into the darkest rooms of your home and into the fiery pits of destruction. Nights which we spent sneaking out and having long, sensual rendezvous in your grandparents’ house quickly turned into treacherous nights of me stressing out and you lying about your drug addiction. I was a volcano, seconds from erupting and you were a hurricane. But neither of us could have imagined our fate; what started off as seemingly innocent and fun turned into something completely tragic and deadly, which we could never control or contain, but something we could have avoided if we had just fucking knew each other.

We wander down into this drug addiction trope; I am completely torn into pieces that someone I have invested my entirety to has found a love in something that could potentially kill him, and how ironically I am wishing it would have been another woman, as at least she would give you things that couldn’t cause damage to your life. As we swindle down into the rabbit hole of drug addiction I find a common theme that I have before avoided; that there was not just one, but two addicts in love. I pursued you desperately as you did cocaine, being a 17-year-old kid with very little money of your own. I was addicted to being your one priority in life, which conventionally enough wasn’t what you’re supposed to do when supporting your first serious boyfriend with a drug addiction.

So where does this leave us? I mean, is this where we key in the nonsensical yelling and arguments that led to nothingness? If that’s the case, then why the fuck were you the way you were? Why did you make me trust you just so you could pick me up and put me down as you please, knowing in the back of your mind that I would let you? Why did you love me if you had even the slightest thought that you could stop? I was too shy and you knew that, and you took advantage of a pure and delicate rose and painted me black and white.

I was more than capable of taking over the entire world with a pen and paper; I was a singer, a writer, a romantic, a naive little shit. I was stupid, nonetheless. But I was thriving and beautiful and willing to learn what it was like to love, so much that I projected it onto someone who didn’t quite love himself yet. And I guess that was why it couldn’t work out. Because I was addicted to your pursuit and you were in the bathroom throwing up constantly. And I wanted to hate you so much, because you took a huge chunk of my entirety and folded and tied it up into something that was near impossible to get back into its original shape.

You traumatized my psyche to the point that I was in genuine shock when the next one treated me decently; when I was crying because someone was nice to me and it wasn’t something I was exactly used to.

I wanted to think that after we broke up, you had some revelation that you fucked up. Secretly I wished that unfortunate events (not tragic, though) would take place in your life so that you’d come back and tell me that you had it wrong and that we could try again. Even though I put up a front that I wasn’t madly and irrevocably smitten by your hands, voice and tired eyes, I was more than certain that I would’ve taken you back if you had said it. I wanted to believe that I would. But again, I romanticize things that never happened, and now we’re four years down the road with nothing but a hardly-touching-softcore-porn version of closure. Sometimes you peek in and out of my life and I think of writing you but then realize that old habits die hard, and I’m four years sober and wouldn’t want you to ruin what I’ve spent so many years on rebuilding.