Mourning Doves

** Trigger Warning** substance abuse, foul language.

I sink with existential dread and gut wrenching apprehension from the birds chirping at 7am. The birds are chirping and my cheek hasn’t even touched my pillow yet. 

But, with the light of this morning I must endure the repercussions of yesterday’s morning, and the mornings before that. Including the reverberating laughter, as well as, the gut wrenching sobs ripped straight from the soft part of my underbelly.

The birds are chirping and I'm relearning how to hate myself.

They’d sing a melody that tells me that I’m doing things wrong. So so so fucking wrong. The neighbors in the morning are walking to their sudans to trek their 45 minute commute, and sit at the desk of their corporate drug -tested jobs. As this happens, I sit on the back porch and drink out of a cracked glass, overfilled with Pinot Grigio. I wave and grit my teeth while murmuring “Good Morning” like a ventriloquist. All while trying to hold back my deafening sobs.

The neighbors in my complex think nothing about it— they don’t even look up to my pleading “have a good morning, because I sure as hell won’t!” I need someone to take my place from these heart rendering compulsions. 

I have this feeling that the neighbors know more about my trauma than I do.

My a cappella song of dejection and self loathing echoes through empty halls. 

They’ve been invited. I’m at home. The welcome mat is out. I don’t see a single light turn on or a curtain moving.

Absent minded of returning to a time of abhorrence towards myself. I thrash in my own skin.

I hope to rip open my flesh and rediscover a girl. A girl who people want to be around— a girl who wants to be around herself. Will that ever be the case? 

The birds are chirping and it sounds like my mother’s singing.

I used to think it was stupid when she sang to me. She sang “twinkle twinkle little star” when I cried petty crocodile tears over my older sister getting to be the blonde barbie. The sound of her pitch was too sharp but also too flat. I hated her favorite color: pastel pink.  

I resented her for not reading out loud the ending to “A Thousand Paper Cranes” because she knew it would make me cry. I finished it anyway and wept on her pillow— she asked if I read the last page and I shook my head aggressively as if to say “You can’t protect me— please don’t protect me!”

I never washed the dishes when she slaved for hours in the kitchen to make me and my sisters chicken n’ dumplins. I never thought I deserved a bowl— and maybe I really didn’t. Having your mother love you is drab. Don’t you think it’s drab? When she sang to me I used to hate it. 

I decided loving your mother was too obnoxious, too uncomfortable, too too much in general. Maybe that’s how I got here? Maybe that’s why I have turned to self-sabotage. because I felt like I never deserved love from even the person who loved me the most. I’m sure if she knew what I’ve been doing, she would exclaim “why would you do this to yourself? I have always tried to love you!”—- her little Emmie- Lou. I crave that love again but I’m afraid I won’t get it from how I’ve become. I’m terrible and I mean it. 

The birds are chirping and I cry.

I don't wanna get better. It took too much work to get here! It takes blood, sweat and tears to get to the top— but it takes tears, sweat, and blood to get to the bottom. The very bottom where I’m scraping my knees on the hard surface and digging my fingernails into the mud. 

I'll never stop feeling sad but instead feel the absence of discomfort. The absence of the bitter songs from the birds in the morning. The absence of late nights and instead waking up early to “get the ball rolling”. The absence of the dollar bill that I should never be rolling.

One of these days I’ll go to the library and pick up a self help book, maybe even attend an NA meeting and meet more people like me. Perhaps, I’ll sneak a small bump in the library bathroom and read the first three chapters. Potentially, I’ll find a dealer who’s batch is straight from Miami at the NA meetings. 

Everything sucks, but people say “it gets better” and “it’s never too late to be whoever you wanna be!” I realize that a life without addiction is completely and utterly horrifying— how would I survive without succumbing to body crippling deterioration? That comes along with accepting that some people actually cherish that I’m not only breathing, but burgeoning for a life worth living. 

The birds are singing their daily praises to me as encouragement. They’re like a small bible study of mourning doves who are praying for my recovery. They’re the ones who clasp their wings around your face and make solemn requests that I should sleep before the infomercials burn into my television screen. They’ll sing hymns on how to kick all of my dependencies. Although heartfelt, I’ve never been the type of person to walk into a church, nor do I know the names of any hymns. 

There’s a deep rooted itch that I have for a chance at normalcy. However, those very thoughts impale the malleable part of my brain with unbelievable force. Shoving my skull back together and tying it with tight threads of sobriety, I’ll someday wake up before my alarm clock. I’ll walk to my sudan to trek my 45 minute commute and sit at the desk of my corporate, drug-tested job. I hate it. I’m terrible and I mean it. 

But, for the meantime, I’ll inch my way to accepting love from others and accepting love for myself. I’ll drop all dependencies and just go the fuck to sleep. 

That state is nothing but a source of comfort for me now. A simple but daunting reminder of how I've learned how to hate myself. A simple but daunting reminder of how I’m not a bad person, but someone who needs a total shift in life. A simple but daunting reminder of the birds chirping in the morning.