This Is Not Escape

This Is Not Escape

You think I drink to escape.

You think I take the pills to run away.

You think I’m numbing myself because I can’t face life.

Wrong.

I drink to stay.

I take the pills to keep myself from walking

straight into the next wound.

If I get messed up enough,

I can’t leave the house.

If I can’t leave the house,

I don’t come home shattered

worse than I left.

This is not weakness.

This is not cowardice.

This is a dam I built

out of whatever scraps I could find

to keep the flood from taking me.

Every time I go out there,

every time I try to participate,

I come back smaller,

crumbling harder,

losing more of myself

until there’s almost nothing left.

So I use the only tools I have—

liquor, medication, fog—

not to drift away

but to stay right here.

Not to escape

but to survive

in a world that cuts me raw.

And the only ones who’ve ever truly understood

are the ones who’ve cared for me without judging,

the ones who’ve seen me

fighting with my back against the wall,

not disappearing

but clawing my way

to still exist.

This is not escape.

This is war.

This is me,

still here,

still fighting to not be gone.

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