Ciao bella

Clouds dry brush the sky with steel and indigo. The approaching sun peeks through in pastel drawn lines of pink and red. It's not like last week's clear, perfect sunrises. But somehow it's even better, as if the clouds, the steel sky and blue shadows make something even more clear. Push through the wall that's coming to meet me after just two miles.

My earphones aren't interfacing properly with my auditory canal. Something about the vacuum it forms lets no sound in from the left. Instead, the morning leaks in, the echo of no traffic & bird song.

Here it comes; the glycogen wall. I will my legs to keep up the pace.

So I told him. I told him about my past as an addict and decade plus of sobriety. He wished me well, puzzled, and then said "It's ok for friends, I respect this was your lifestyle choice, but for a mate - someone I might even have children with - is unacceptable...Why are you telling me now?"

"I thought, based on what you said during that conversation we had while driving to Home Depot, that you wouldn't talk to me anymore. I finally just decided that I couldn't hide it anymore. Being a sober person is a big part of my life and I decided that if you don't want me around because of that well, you should be able to make that decision. I was afraid. There have been times I've told people and they said it was cool, but they disappeared. No returned phone calls, gone."

"No no, I don't disappear. I'm attached to you. Not going away." But again, I don't trust it. Attached... check your dictionary again. In subsequent days since this conversation? Silence. Better to know the truth, I guess. So I guess that's it. Done. Over and out. Ciao bella.

Right now, as birds scream around me, I want to yell at him. I want to shake him until his brains rattle and ask "Since when is having a disease a 'lifestyle choice'? It's a sickness! A pre-existing condition like any cancer. So fuck you! Every day for 10 + years I've had to dig down & tap a greater source just to stay alive! If you want to have a negative judgement about that it's your problem! My journey has been a blessing! You want to walk away? Fine. FINE!! You're selfish and I hate the way you make humor by putting me down, anyhow! Ciao!"

The flock of seagulls mingles, squaks and swarms, conversing with jets flying low. Our birds eat McDonals and our waterlife takes unwilling doses of ridalin & antidepressants. It seems like too much, for a minute.

I feel the volume of my heart, pumping away in my chest. Pushing through I get that power and it carries me all the way home.