This House
An awareness. A confession.
No matter how many times I rearrange the furniture, or vacuum the floors, wash my sheets-
this will always be the house that my dad told me it felt like I killed his daughter.
It will always be the house where they disregarded my boundaries, where the hate crimes were committed;
the pills were taken, cuts made, secrets whispered.
No matter how much I want to cry -- the tears always seem to come at the most unfortunate times.
When I am driving to the doctors.
When I am out buying groceries.
There is a Publix just before the gate to get into my neighborhood:
there was a time in my life when every night on my drive home I would pull into the desolate parking lot,
make sure my doors were locked,
turn the music up,
take my glasses off
and scream as loud as I could until the tears came.
Only after this would I text my parents I was heading home because I knew cleaning myself up from this therapeutic detour would take the same amount of time as driving home from across town.
They say you can't heal in the same environment that you got sick in.
This is the house that I realized that I will always have another relapse in me-- but I don't think I have another recovery in me.
And that awareness is scary.
Recovery takes work.
Living in this house takes work.
Living in the shadow of your dad's dead daughter is like walking on glass that only I can feel and I can't let anyone else see how much blood is seeping out of where I'm supposed to be connected to this world.
No matter how many times I rearrange my room, the furniture wil remain the same.
No matter how many times I clean out my closet it will always be the closet I used to hide razors and vodka bottles in.
This will always be the house that a deer chose to come to die in the front yard in and where I hallucinated bugs and shadow people when my health insurance decided I didn't need my medication anymore.
This will always be the house where my family is surprised to see me because when I enter a room I am " just too quiet".
But maybe that's because in this house I've always been a ghost.
They say you can't heal in the same environment that you got sick in.
They also say wherever you go there you are.
If I do go, I need to make sure I go for the right reasons.
If I run, I'll run somewhere with love.
About the Creator
Riley Forest
(they/them)
Thanks for joining me on this adventure.
Reading and writing help me feel less alone. I love all forms of art.
Born in Alberta, CA. Based in Florida, US.
Link to my Youtube channel to see videos of my poetry!
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More stories from Riley Forest and writers in Poets and other communities.
Day 4 of Quitting
If this is how sobriety feels, maybe it’s better to go through life a little buzzed… this, along with other hits like, I want to kill myself, I wish I was dead, and I’m going to throw myself off a bridge have been the only thoughts on rotation these past few days. I promise myself that if, in a month, I still feel like this (‘this’ meaning despondent, full of rage, and simultaneously numb) I can go back to smoking. Until mid-February though? Nicotine is off the table.
By sleepy drafts5 days ago in Longevity
Comments (1)
Wooohooooo congratulations on your win! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊