i. most people don’t choose to be addicts, but most people could’ve prevented it from the very start. you aren’t like most people, though: your addiction was born with you and you blame your mother and her silken womb. your addiction grew with you and you blame your father and his silver spoon.
ii. you don’t realise you’re an addict because the blame is never on you. when you’re not blaming your mother and father and silken wombs and silver spoonfuls of attention, you blame mental illness and astrology and the world for not orbiting you and chaos and war and abuse.
iii. you realise you’re an addict when they take away your poison: when the needle getting ripped out of your flesh leaves behind an open wound and as the blood starts dripping, you swallow the pain and let it settle in the bottom of your stomach and start wondering, why does no one care? and you’re not okay, obviously, you’re bleeding, but you’re addicted to being seen and to be seen is worth every drop of blood that spills and — that’s when you realise you’re an addict. your stomach is empty and you starve for attention.
iv. you fight your addiction by hating it. you curse sickly wombs wishing you never were carried by one and you reject rusty spoons in hopes of undoing all the growing up you’ve done. you realise it’s a curse to be so controlled and submissive that you wind up blameless and faultless, so you own up to every mistake in the universe in hopes of owning yourself.
v. you lose yourself in your own head. your past only catches up to you during late nights and during times in which your inhibitions are lowered, but you simply reject it: you’re not addicted to attention anymore and you don’t bite your nails anymore and you don’t steal from small shops anymore. you don’t get good grades anymore or smile a lot anymore or have enough anger in you to set the world on fire anymore.
vi. most people don’t choose to be addicted but it’s the only thing you’ve ever known so when you replace one addiction with another, you realise what you’re doing, but it’s far too late and you don’t have the energy to be warm, let alone to bother anymore. so you do your thing: you curl up into a small ball and wish for the world not to see you anymore. you curl up more and more until you’re a tangled mess of skin and bones and there’s a knot in your throat that prevents the words from coming out. you curl up more and more and more until you’re too scared to let go.
