One. · 3:55pm Jun 12th, 2016
One room, one week, one day at a time. A bed, a sink, and someone to come make sure I’m not dead three or four times a day. One round of blazing heat, one round of frigid cold, one prayer to the porcelain god.
One of a whole hell of a lot of things, and they all seemed like the best idea in the world yesterday.
Day one. Twenty-four hours since I walked away from everything killing me. My body aches, I can’t sleep, and even under all these blankets I’m still freezing cold. It hurts to move, but I can’t sit still. It hurts to think I’m so sore, but my mind is racing like a train. My eyes keep going to down to the spots I used to know. The painful one, right on the joint. Reliable, but it hurt so much I couldn’t do it half the time. Old faithful, just a few inches to the left, on the mainline. Plug and play, almost every day, but it’s almost collapsed now. That one spot right near the end of my foreleg, where I hit a nerve and it never healed. I trace the lines and I can’t stop thinking about how quickly it would all be over if I just gave up and went back.
Day two. I thought I’d been in pain before. Now I can sit still, except for the tremors. Sweating buckets, running for the bathroom, stomach turning inside out every half hour. Can’t trace the lines anymore, because if I do it’ll all be over. Even more blankets, and I’m still so cold, except for when I’m so hot I want to go jump in the snow. The music helps. It gives me something to focus on, helps me forget how sick I am, how fast I could get well.
Day three. At least it’s not worse.
Day four. Things are starting to change. The tremors are going away. Sleep, for an hour at a time. Water stays down, finally. Food doesn’t. I start to move more than I absolutely have to. I can open the window myself. The only real friends I have left are smiling again. They don’t just say I can do it now, they really believe I can. Glad someone does. I still hurt. Mind doesn’t work right. Can’t stop seeing the needle and the blood and the grave.
Day five. Tremors are mostly gone. Still hurt, but it’s starting to go away. Ate something, somehow. Slept long enough that I’m only exhausted now, not half dead. Starting to believe my friends. First time since I admitted what I was that I felt like I could be anything else. Still can’t trace the lines, but maybe I don’t have to anymore.
Day six. Still tired, but better. Pain is just a dull roar now. Not twitching anymore. I took a shower. The water hurt, but I feel clean for the first time in so long. Home feels like home. I don’t worry so much about ending up back in an alley, passed out against the wall. It’s my bed, not just a bed. I’m not afraid that I’ll be hungry next week. When I see money, I don’t convert it to points. I threw out my last needle. It feels wrong not to have one in my pocket, but I don’t need it anymore. One more day.
Day seven. I saw the sun rise, and I didn’t wonder why I was there. I shaved. I wore clean clothes. I did a million normal things, things I hadn’t done in so long, and I felt like me again. I’m not really tired. I’m sore, but I can ignore it now. My stomach is full for the first time in so long, it feels weird not to be empty. I start wondering if I’ll put any of the hundred pounds I lost in less than a year back on.
One week. I open the door. I walk outside.
One more time. I wonder how long it’ll be until I’m here again. I trace the lines, without even thinking about it.
And that's an edited down version of why I'm so absent these days.
Wait, are you in rehab?
You accomplished something few I have ever known have done. Your strength of will is something to be envied. Never let anyone convince you otherwise.
Above all else, remember what it took to get here, so you don't have to fight that same battle twice.
4017467 The home game version.
4017663 Thanks for the kind words, man.
4017673 Jesus.
Good luck man.
4017691 Thank you
4017746 You're welcome.
Good job my friend, I hope this change helps you greatly in the coming days.
Damn are you a fucking poet!
4018724 Cause that is some amazing shit you wrote!
*claps*
4018734
Thank you! Honestly, it was just stream of consciousness writing to distract myself, although I'm debating expanding it into an actual short story.
4019005 I think it would work as a chapter story about rainbow dash!
4019229 Wait...yes, yes YES!!! This could be a secal-precol of a 3 chapter book serie...perfect.
4019230 About a human who has a door-portal into Equs and has to save it 3 times!
4019231 And when he/she is needed goes in, turn into a pony and goes undetect and saves the day out in the public the goes back home in the end but fate decided otherwise!
4019232 I was thinking more along the lines of a 2-3 thousand word run through of the whole thing, more detail and less vaguely poetic rambling, set to a song I listened to a lot at the time.