The Weight of Empty Hands
And the freedom it barely grants.
everything around me became too real. the days after my sobriety were some of the hardest. nothing to cling to. nothing to fall in, fall on, fall over. just me. my veins drew breath. like breathing plants into my skin, where only sunflowers and freesia and sweet peas could grow. but with that the weeds clung to my throat.
i found it harder to speak. my courage was buried somewhere where sobriety was planted. the awareness became haunting. the self awareness felt predatory. it creeps up on you. you try not to look, but you feel it following you like a beast with an empty stomach. and you miss who you were when you didn’t know who you were.
you found me. i held your face between my hands and let your face droop between my fingers. your freckles, little galaxies splashed inside a big old art gallery. you seemed to hold the frames like a kid at show n tell. and i was at every exhibit. i had something new to look at. something new to get drunk on.
but your mind is a funhouse and my heart is a paper weight. and the more shows i would attend, the more paintings you made, the more colors you played with until everything became a splat on a canvas. i saw killers and dead orcas, you saw jesus and the future. and art is an opinion. and sobriety is a perception.
you stand on the stage and no one else is there. i always sat in the audience smiling, clapping as loud as i could, but i am not the hands of a thousand people. and you feed off the breath of many thanks. and i can’t watch it. and my heart becomes a rock you cannot lift.
but a funhouse is only fun if there’s someone to laugh with. and a paperweight only matters if there’s something to hold down.
