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Disappear Like Mist.
"I am the thing that stands outside your bedroom door and whispers through the keyhole.
The hand that knows the face you pretend you can't see outside the upstairs window.
If I am not welcome you can tell me, I'll disappear like mist."
(The Blue Moon After Next; The Narcissist Cookbook)
##
"I am the thing that stands outside your bedroom door and whispers through the keyhole."
##
She’s crying again. Peering through the keyhole, I can see her shuddering form on the bed. Her hand is held over her mouth to muffle the sounds as best she can.
I know she’s crying. She knows I know she’s crying. Her determined efforts to stifle her sobs are for naught. She knows that. I know that.
And yet, this mindless dance continues. As it has for the past six months.
It had started small. Complaints about work, the weekend flying by too fast, the laundry piling up for months - the latest load forgotten about before the start of the new week. And then there were the opaque waterbottles Mys was forever sipping from, and the endless amount of ice their freezer went through. These complaints and odd behaviours became a predictable routine.
Unbeknownst to me, these ‘small’ events had been subtle clues to Mya’s hidden undoing.
Things had escalated so subtly that I hadn’t realised just how far she had slid until one afternoon when I was home early enough to see Mya came home from work.
She walked by without acknowledging my presence and dumped her backpack in the hallway underneath framed photos of our life together. It's hard now to believe that Mya’s silent trek to the alcohol cabinet had ever once been an occasional occurrence. I had watched, a sick feeling settling in my stomach, as Mya strode confidently to the cupboard doors, swung them open and twisted the lid off the white rum bottle in one smooth practised move. She took a deep swig from the bottle, squeezing her eyes closed as the liquor burned down her throat.
Upon opening, Mya’s steel grey eyes flicked only briefly to meet mine - the large orbs widening in surprise before her face settled into a look of indifference. I kept my gaze squarely on her face, but Mya refused to make eye-contact again. Instead, she held the glass bottle down against the outer side of her left thigh and walked straight into the guest bedroom.
I had tried to follow. Instead, the locked door kept me physically separated from Mya, regardless of my varied pleas.
She would only emerge from the room when I was asleep. She walks around with a forced spring in her step and wide smile while refusing to discuss her vices.
Thus, here we are. Six months later. Mya bawling hysterically while periodically swigging from a bottle of whatever spirit was on special recently, and me peering helplessly through the keyhole of the locked door - wishing I would be let in.
##
"The hand that knows the face you pretend you can't see outside the upstairs window."
##
Mya refuses to talk about it.
Well, that isn’t entirely true.
In the first few months, she had tried relentlessly to brush it off as a non-issue, or even worse, a positive habit.
“I mean, I’ve been feeling so shit lately, yknow? Being left alone with myself has been getting dangerous again. And you know what, ‘Lena? I actually LIKE tipsy me. She’s great!”
“But Mya,” I had tried to argue, “this isn’t a healthy habit! Have you made that appointment with your psychologist yet?”
Mya had been meaning to reconnect with her psychologist for months. She is absolutely brilliant at avoiding following through with this task. Her GP has re-written the referral twice.
I’m beginning to doubt Mya has any real intention of using the referral at all.
Her GP doesn’t know about the drinking. She’s still lying to them. ‘Lies of omission,’ she’ll defend, as if that is any better. She says she respects her GP too much to lie directly to their face. I say she’s actively disrespecting herself and her GP by continuing to drink.
The first time I said that aloud, she’d locked herself in the spare room for the entire weekend.
I tried clearing out the liquor cabinet, and relocating it regularly, but all it did was give Mya a reason to visit the bottle shop... Or cause her to absolutely lose her shit in a hysterical outburst before storming to the spare bedroom and getting sloshed on her secret stash anyway.
Today is Friday, which means Mya followed her routine as soon as she arrived home from work. Like clockwork, she dropped her bag in the hallway, strode down her cursed path to the cabinet, and took a few hearty swigs from the current conquest - Fireball whiskey.
I hope it at least lasts for the two days that make up our weekend. Watching Mya kill herself slowly by guzzling an entire bottle over 1 day also kills me inside.
The thing is, Mya is “‘fine’” when she’s drunk around me and other people. I hate to validate her observations that the alcohol makes her more jovial, sociable, and happy when she’s drunk, but they are accurate. However, these qualities don’t outweigh the misery she experiences when alone and drunk. I’ve seen and heard - through my keyhole - the many moments when Mya becomes helpless to her drunk mind. The fact that I’m not allowed in to comfort her is what hurts most.
She thinks she hides it well.
Sometimes, when I’m in the backyard, and look up through the guest bedroom window, I see her tearstained face. Mya will close the curtains when she notices me, but the broken expression I’ve seen on her face in these moments are forever seared into my mind. No matter how wide she smiles, or how hard she laughs when drunk, THIS is the true face of Mya as she struggles through this addiction.
How can I allow this to continue when I have seen the true toll her alcoholism is having on the love of my life?
##
"If I am not welcome you can tell me, I'll disappear like mist."
##
I continue putting all my effort in this relationship under the assumption that Mya still loves me more than the alcohol, and that she will one day accept my contant offers of support to begin her healing journey.
Sometimes I feel like a fool for clinging to this hope.
What if I’m just an annoyance now?
What if she’s made the decision that this is her life, and I’m no longer required to be part of it?
I still love her. So much. And when she’s sober - tired, but sober - I can almost convince myself that she still loves me. Every time she picks up the bottle again, though, I feel her pull further and further away.
At what point do I put myself first?
At what point can I start attempting to convince myself that walking away is NOT giving up on her?
The good times are GREAT. The bad times are horrific… Mya has pushed and pushed me away until I’m not even in the same galaxy. Sometimes, she blesses me with her presence, but she always leaves again. Leaving me endlessly floating through the abyss, worrying about her, loving her from a painful distance, and wishing with everything within me that she deems me worthy of her presence again.
I need her permission for me to let go.
I need her permission to buckle down and be firmer in my support.
I need her to tell me whether she wants me to stay or go.
But she refuses to talk to me about it anymore.
This is not living.
Our aimless waltz continues towards oblivion.
© O.M.A
#songoftheday #shortstory #unhappyending #writco #writcoapp #addiction #relationships #alcoholism #story #lgbtq
The hand that knows the face you pretend you can't see outside the upstairs window.
If I am not welcome you can tell me, I'll disappear like mist."
(The Blue Moon After Next; The Narcissist Cookbook)
##
"I am the thing that stands outside your bedroom door and whispers through the keyhole."
##
She’s crying again. Peering through the keyhole, I can see her shuddering form on the bed. Her hand is held over her mouth to muffle the sounds as best she can.
I know she’s crying. She knows I know she’s crying. Her determined efforts to stifle her sobs are for naught. She knows that. I know that.
And yet, this mindless dance continues. As it has for the past six months.
It had started small. Complaints about work, the weekend flying by too fast, the laundry piling up for months - the latest load forgotten about before the start of the new week. And then there were the opaque waterbottles Mys was forever sipping from, and the endless amount of ice their freezer went through. These complaints and odd behaviours became a predictable routine.
Unbeknownst to me, these ‘small’ events had been subtle clues to Mya’s hidden undoing.
Things had escalated so subtly that I hadn’t realised just how far she had slid until one afternoon when I was home early enough to see Mya came home from work.
She walked by without acknowledging my presence and dumped her backpack in the hallway underneath framed photos of our life together. It's hard now to believe that Mya’s silent trek to the alcohol cabinet had ever once been an occasional occurrence. I had watched, a sick feeling settling in my stomach, as Mya strode confidently to the cupboard doors, swung them open and twisted the lid off the white rum bottle in one smooth practised move. She took a deep swig from the bottle, squeezing her eyes closed as the liquor burned down her throat.
Upon opening, Mya’s steel grey eyes flicked only briefly to meet mine - the large orbs widening in surprise before her face settled into a look of indifference. I kept my gaze squarely on her face, but Mya refused to make eye-contact again. Instead, she held the glass bottle down against the outer side of her left thigh and walked straight into the guest bedroom.
I had tried to follow. Instead, the locked door kept me physically separated from Mya, regardless of my varied pleas.
She would only emerge from the room when I was asleep. She walks around with a forced spring in her step and wide smile while refusing to discuss her vices.
Thus, here we are. Six months later. Mya bawling hysterically while periodically swigging from a bottle of whatever spirit was on special recently, and me peering helplessly through the keyhole of the locked door - wishing I would be let in.
##
"The hand that knows the face you pretend you can't see outside the upstairs window."
##
Mya refuses to talk about it.
Well, that isn’t entirely true.
In the first few months, she had tried relentlessly to brush it off as a non-issue, or even worse, a positive habit.
“I mean, I’ve been feeling so shit lately, yknow? Being left alone with myself has been getting dangerous again. And you know what, ‘Lena? I actually LIKE tipsy me. She’s great!”
“But Mya,” I had tried to argue, “this isn’t a healthy habit! Have you made that appointment with your psychologist yet?”
Mya had been meaning to reconnect with her psychologist for months. She is absolutely brilliant at avoiding following through with this task. Her GP has re-written the referral twice.
I’m beginning to doubt Mya has any real intention of using the referral at all.
Her GP doesn’t know about the drinking. She’s still lying to them. ‘Lies of omission,’ she’ll defend, as if that is any better. She says she respects her GP too much to lie directly to their face. I say she’s actively disrespecting herself and her GP by continuing to drink.
The first time I said that aloud, she’d locked herself in the spare room for the entire weekend.
I tried clearing out the liquor cabinet, and relocating it regularly, but all it did was give Mya a reason to visit the bottle shop... Or cause her to absolutely lose her shit in a hysterical outburst before storming to the spare bedroom and getting sloshed on her secret stash anyway.
Today is Friday, which means Mya followed her routine as soon as she arrived home from work. Like clockwork, she dropped her bag in the hallway, strode down her cursed path to the cabinet, and took a few hearty swigs from the current conquest - Fireball whiskey.
I hope it at least lasts for the two days that make up our weekend. Watching Mya kill herself slowly by guzzling an entire bottle over 1 day also kills me inside.
The thing is, Mya is “‘fine’” when she’s drunk around me and other people. I hate to validate her observations that the alcohol makes her more jovial, sociable, and happy when she’s drunk, but they are accurate. However, these qualities don’t outweigh the misery she experiences when alone and drunk. I’ve seen and heard - through my keyhole - the many moments when Mya becomes helpless to her drunk mind. The fact that I’m not allowed in to comfort her is what hurts most.
She thinks she hides it well.
Sometimes, when I’m in the backyard, and look up through the guest bedroom window, I see her tearstained face. Mya will close the curtains when she notices me, but the broken expression I’ve seen on her face in these moments are forever seared into my mind. No matter how wide she smiles, or how hard she laughs when drunk, THIS is the true face of Mya as she struggles through this addiction.
How can I allow this to continue when I have seen the true toll her alcoholism is having on the love of my life?
##
"If I am not welcome you can tell me, I'll disappear like mist."
##
I continue putting all my effort in this relationship under the assumption that Mya still loves me more than the alcohol, and that she will one day accept my contant offers of support to begin her healing journey.
Sometimes I feel like a fool for clinging to this hope.
What if I’m just an annoyance now?
What if she’s made the decision that this is her life, and I’m no longer required to be part of it?
I still love her. So much. And when she’s sober - tired, but sober - I can almost convince myself that she still loves me. Every time she picks up the bottle again, though, I feel her pull further and further away.
At what point do I put myself first?
At what point can I start attempting to convince myself that walking away is NOT giving up on her?
The good times are GREAT. The bad times are horrific… Mya has pushed and pushed me away until I’m not even in the same galaxy. Sometimes, she blesses me with her presence, but she always leaves again. Leaving me endlessly floating through the abyss, worrying about her, loving her from a painful distance, and wishing with everything within me that she deems me worthy of her presence again.
I need her permission for me to let go.
I need her permission to buckle down and be firmer in my support.
I need her to tell me whether she wants me to stay or go.
But she refuses to talk to me about it anymore.
This is not living.
Our aimless waltz continues towards oblivion.
© O.M.A
#songoftheday #shortstory #unhappyending #writco #writcoapp #addiction #relationships #alcoholism #story #lgbtq
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