Repose, Remember.

The Original:

https://theprose.com/post/749675/blood-and-silver

The New:

I shrug to relieve the discomfort of the nicotine patch on my arm, its freshness burning with a familiar tingle of chemical to skin. I ignore it otherwise for a long while instead focusing my eyes on the lamp post ahead. Argentille did have beautiful Winters, though I so often forgot in favour of its seedier seasons. I sigh heavily, watching my breath billow out in front of me and dance away like a coupling of aerials.

I am alone now. My family gone, their gazes cold and fleeting as I showed up on their stoop, dirty, painted in dark disturbances aside the IV site that showed the few inches of soft, pale skin and a faint red dot where the needle had been. My mother handed me a cheque- just enough for a few months rent- and disappeared to grab her suitcase without a word. I would have said it suits me just fine, but sobriety allows a conscience a conscious thought so I must say it aches deeply. But this is life, isn't it? Aching horribly, intentions strewn, boundaries stretched.

I would be called abusive in a thousand ways and yet no one wishes to know me deeper than that. As to why I am- it is such a private event not a soul I have 'loved' has wormed from me. That is strength, as weak as it may hold up to such a heavy guilt beating me down with such force.

I blink, the snowflakes heavy on my lashes as I twist my fingers- nine and a half (because the butcher of my ring had been sloppy) in the pockets of my jacket. Warmth is something unfamiliar. Pain is unfamiliar in this extent. Knowing I had meant so much to someone they could barely glance at me for fear of breaking, knowing my life was worth more than a bounty. I trace the nub at my second knuckle with the opposite index twisted between blue pills from my hoodie. I smile, and it is a sick thing. To smile despite tragedy at your own hands. To feel joy after committing such pain. I lick at my windchapped lips and gaze upon the road ahead.

My pockets stuffed with nothing but cigarette embers, the grime of filthy bills and blood. Deeper, though, I feel my family thought they may hurt at my thought beneath within my veins. I feel the heat of my flesh. I feel the truth of my own heartbeat bred from generations of love.

I smile up at the lamppost softly, welcoming the snow upon my skin. My town. My home. My life. My humanity.