Music

(quiet, underneath, like an echo of your own thoughts) “You’re running… I know… but that’s not the way.”

I drank because I wanted not to feel, swallowed a pill — wanted not to think. Someone in the mirror was looking at me, and I couldn’t take him in. (whisper): “that isn’t you… that’s a shadow…” They say: “alcohol destroys a life” — not true. Emptiness destroys a life. I carried in my pocket the key to not existing, easy as a breath, quick as forgetting. (ad-lib): “switch me off… switch me off…” And I was never fighting the substances, I was fighting what they promised. (ad-lib): “lie down… sleep… disappear…”

If I was able to destroy my life, I am able to build it too. (ad-lib): “it’s the same energy…” The same force, only pointed the other way.

The laziness was never a lack of ambition. It was armour. (ad-lib): “don’t bother… what for… it won’t work anyway…” The pills were never a high. They were an erasure. (ad-lib): “put it out… delete… reset…” Until one morning I woke with no chemistry in my blood. (ad-lib — surprised): “hello… are you there?” I felt the pain. And I didn’t run. (ad-lib — steady for the first time): “stop. breathe.”

I don’t make plans for the year. I’m not planning “a new life”. I have only one thing: tomorrow I get up without shame. No hangover. No chemistry. (ad-lib): “light… light… light…”

Out of that change came a book. Not a manual. Not a testimony. A doorway. Page after page — I’m installing a new operating system: feeling instead of numbness, being present instead of running, light instead of shame. (ad-lib — like an echo): “update… update… a new version of you…” The door is open. (whisper): “come in…”