FWF, Kellie Elmore, Pain

Uncle Wally

My name is Wally, though people used to call me Mr. Dawson. I barely remember those days but I was you, Mister Fancy Suit, a long time ago. I had a great family and a job I loved, until my life changed and I became who I am today. My whole body is wracked in pain, every bone and muscle, even the inside of my head hurts all the time.

Pain (Photo credit: Rickydavid)

My liver and kidneys are rotting, orange like rust. I have lots of pain when I am sober enough to look at my life long enough to remember. It lasts only a minute or two, then I pop a handful of pills, drink two or three shots of cheap whiskey

 

and vodka or whatever I can get my hands on just to dull the edges around my sorry life.

I got the needle tracks on my arms, but today I’m hurting with no more crack or heroin to get me through the day. My friend Ben said he’ll come meet me at this here bar. He still isn’t here and I’m going through hell.

English: 2 Gs of Tweak (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People don’t believe me when I tell them that I was  a white-collar, middle-class family man for more than twenty-five years. I had a little office, a desk and chair. I was a loyal employee and where did that get me? It got me nothing, that’s for sure. I put in all my hours, never took a sick day once and still they let me go.

I dealt with unemployment well the first year, I went on interviews but after a year and a half things slowed down. People weren’t returning my calls, I would interview for jobs and they would never say if I got the job or if I didn’t. I would call up and ask and people never returned the call. First, I thought it was just me but then I talked to some other guys, women too, who had lost their jobs and the same thing was happening to them, to everyone I knew.

I’d spent my whole adult life working here, every single day, being the husband to my wife Adele and the father to Gordon and Jennifer. Why, my office was a mini-vacation for my kids. every year they spent some time with me in “Daddy’s big office.” I loved that, when they came in and Mom made us all sandwiches from home. She’d do something special for herself that day, like get her hair done or her nails and I was so proud that I could give that to her. She was the best wife and mother you could ask for in a person.

Liquid Dinner (Photo credit: Rolling Okie)

What happened to the great country I lived in? No money coming in, now Adele was working part-time. Finally, something inside me died. I couldn’t stand it anymore it hurt so much that I started drinking a lot to dull the pain, I drank around the clock, I stopped shaving and wouldn’t leave the house. My wife used to scream at me, she said I was a “bad influence on the kids.” We fought all the time.

I was a nasty drunk too. Adele, threw me out. The last straw was when I got real angry, so angry that I slapped my wife, well, I pushed her and she turned pale, she was scared of me. She had every right. I was not the man she married. I was not the husband she loved, the father of her children. I was an addict but I didn’t want help, I just wanted out.

I grabbed a few of my things and stuffed them into a bag. The kids were at school and Adele was working. I took our savings money and I left. I walked out the door thinking it would be better for them. I thought I did the right thing, looking at me now, three years later, I am convinced I was right.

 

 

 

 

FWF Kellie Elmore

Source: We Heart It

You suddenly find yourself standing alone on an unknown sidewalk in an unknown place. It’s night and snowing and the only other person around is walking away from you….

Everything looks different at night, doesn’t it? I turned to watch the back of Julia’s slim body walk away from me, in the snow one last time. For a second I thought I would run after her, tell her I would change. But, I had gone down this road too many times, that even I didn’t believe my own shit now.

I liked to drink, so what? We all drank, mostly vodka, sometimes beer, I did cocaine a couple of times.  Julia and I lived together in our first floor apartment in Soho. Those were good times, we had just graduated from NYU, we both worked to pay the rent and we hung out with a bunch of friends. Sometimes our parents would write checks to help us out with the rent or just to be nice which was awesome for us.

We would have brunch on Sundays in the Village with our friends, mimosas were free and I knew the bartender, he and I were buddies, so he always gave me an extra shot or two of vodka in mine. It felt good to be with my girlfriend, out on Sundays in the summer sun. This was Julia’s idea of perfection, she looked forward to it every week, I loved that she looked so happy.

I don’t know if she suspected that I drank more than what she saw but she did give me a few curious looks now and then. Since she didn’t ask me about it, I chose not to tell her. I wasn’t lying really. Our fights were always about me drinking and getting high anyway, I didn’t want to start something else. No way.

We both drank, maybe me a little more, fine, a lot more and we got high once in a while, listened to music. I don’t even know when things started to change, I can’t remember although Julia could probably remember ever damn fucking situation that she seemed to bring up and throw in my face as often as she could. “Of course you can’t remember, she would scream at me you were totally doped up, drunk and passed out.”

She was right but I would never admit to it. I’m an angry drunk and I took my anger out on her, I threw things, broke things, I crashed her light green plates across the apartment but I never laid a hand on her. Almost came close, twice. Real close but I didn’t, she had gone but she had always come back after a couple of days. Always.

This time, was different. She gave me an ultimatum, choose a treatment program or her. I told her I would try, really try but this time but I saw golden sparks coming out of her deep brown eyes. She kept standing and wouldn’t sit down even when I tried to pull her close to me. When I tried to kiss her she moved away. “C’mon baby, I love you, don’t you know that?” I asked. She said she knew “but it wasn’t enough anymore.” I just kept shaking my head  and mumbling “no, can’t do, no, no, no, not for you, no, no, no.” She turned around and abruptly left my apartment slamming the door. The noise hurt my ears.

Since when is love not enough? I knew she loved me too. For a second I thought I would run after her but instead I lit up a joint, poured myself  a stiff drink, a tall vodka on ice. After a while, I didn’t care that she was gone, I was probably better off. She was just a nuisance anyway, always bugging me to get clean.

I didn’t need her anymore. I didn’t need anyone. I was happy just the way I was. Damn straight, I refilled my glass of vodka to the top.

Haiku Heights: Swing

Bipolar (Photo credit: Jack Maurice Lesage)

swing (Photo credit: emurray)

Drunken, sick, green face

low, high, eyes soar beyond clouds

coffee alone, sad

************

Manic, down, up high

fetus shaped, tears, buy diamonds

Praying for balance.

Carry On Tuesday – If I could have just one wish….

‘Everyone says the same thing,’ she thought as she lay in the darkness, her arms folded above her head, hiding her face. ‘There is no secret, no surprise, no one is original, I’m certainly not.” Clara didn’t care about originality, she didn’t care about anything anymore, part of why her mother and father were always in her face, worried about her, crying over her. Why didn’t they see, she just wanted them to give her space, to leave her alone.

Her boyfriend of three years had left, they had broken up over a nasty fight and she had sent him away for good. At the moment it was definitely the right thing to do and she knew that. Max had become different, unreliable at times, unpredictable. She had asked him over and over if she had done anything wrong to upset him and he always laughed her off and just said “Nah, babe, it’s just how I am” and so she accepted it for a while. Other time he was his old self, happy, engaged and loving.

Clara knew that he had a new girlfriend, some girl who rode a Harley and dressed in black leather. It had taken him all of four days to rebound and get involved with this new biker chick and now they were inseparable. It made Clara sick to even think about it much less see them but she also couldn’t avoid it. This was no “Romeo and Juliette” love story. She knew that he was drinking a lot again, and she had always hated when he did that; he called her square and said she was “no fun.” She knew she was fun, she just was strong, strong enough not to put up with all his lame bullshit.

She wasn’t sorry she had broken up with him, not like all her girlfriends who had encouraged her to go back to him, those spineless goats. No, she wasn’t sorry at all. If she had one wish, one wish at all, she would have broken up with him three and a half years ago when her gut feelings told her he was a loser and that this was a relationship that was never going to go anywhere. That, was her biggest regret.

She crawled off the couch, took a shower and got dressed. She gathered her school books together and finished writing her essay for her college Literature class. She was done moping, he had taken up her time and energy, she didn’t need him anymore to prove herself. She went down the stairs, grabbed a cup of coffee, said a cheerful “good-bye” to her parents and headed off to class.