The Rhythm of their Souls

At the tender age of eight years old, I casually discovered that the dangerous cocktail of drugs and alcohol, when intertwined with the fragility of a wounded soul, swiftly plunges one into an unyielding vortex of destructive turmoil.

How did I learn this at such an adolescent age, you ask? Well, my mother didn’t hesitate to rub it in my face every time she cracked open a chilled beer or set flame to a pipe at all hours of the night.

The sad thing is that even in those harrowing moments, I was just grateful to have her home. You see, her absence became a constant in my life. Another unwanted lesson was when I realized that her random “store trips” meant she would vanish out of thin air for two to three days.

It became normal to the point where I stopped wondering why and accepted the shitty life that was rudely handed to me on a broken wilted platter.