Chocolate Alcohol

         Driving home at night always made me sleepy, especially when the world outside was like an enormous snow globe. All I knew was that I was driving along the country roads and staring into the darkness with this inner anticipation.

         I wasn't sure what I was thinking or what I expected to happen- I guess I was just searching for some sort of miracle to drizzle upon me like the snowdust falling from the sky. It was Christmas after all- isn't that the time where miracles go up at least fifty percent than they would in a normal year? Of course, I was an optimist trying to be a hopeful pessimist and it just wasn't working this time.

         It was almost two months now and still it hurt to breathe, it hurt to walk- hell, it even hurt to think because my mind was always plagued by him. This eventually led to my vicious thoughts thinking of every sad, miserable incident in my life and eventually I realized that I must be a magnet for misfortune.
         Madame Misfortune.
         
         "Fuck it all." I swore, turning off the radio that was playing another one of those mournful country songs. I know that country songs get a bad rap for having really odd titles and lyrics at times- almost ridiculously so, but they had an uncanny ability to touch upon romance a little all to well. At least, the bitter part of romance. Perhaps too many cowboys ditzed around with too many pretty girls and that was a recipe for disaster. I was a disaster. It was to the point where I was going, "Alright, if this next song is that one certain song then it's a sign and everything is going to come together.

         I knew that it really didn't matter. That God wasn't going to magically bless me. Since I was a little girl running around in the golden fields back behind that rusted old barn, I knew God was never going to come down and give me a miracle. Yet like a fool I always find myself still begging him for one.

         Later that night I'm sitting alone on the couch, flicking through the television. For some awful reason I'm watching the Lifetime channel and all they have on are romantic holiday movies. They're cute, they're hopeful... and I'm crying the entire time. I keep thinking, "It's silly to cry over a breakup that happened two months ago, right?" but I'm still bawling my eyes out because it isn't just the break up.
         It's never just about any one thing.

         Eventually I'm not just making hot cocoa anymore to watch these movies, I'm also drinking any liquor that has even a chance to go well with chocolate. I know I can't drink anything that tastes too much like alcohol anyway, so I figure if I just drink a lot of hot chocolate, eventually I'll get to the point where I want to be.
         I've told myself that for about fifteen years now.

         After movies, I'm in my bed staring up at the ceiling- trying to make pictures with the protruding white dots above me. Again, I find myself being five years old and tearing up while trying to talk- trying to make a deal with God.
         "I know I don't talk to you much, but please... just this once let me go to sleep and then wake up and have everything be okay... or have one thing be okay, please? Fix dad, fix mom, fix him, fix my scars, fix my habits, fix me, fix anything..."

         As I say it, my salty faucet starts leaking again because I know that I'm going to wake up tomorrow and there would be no answer. Then I start wondering if I keep testing myself, if there would ever be an answer or if eventually I'd be rotting in the ground for no apparent reason than, "she tested her limits and went beyond."
         So much shit... and it all just keeps spinning around in my head. I think of everything they did, I've done or what I'm afraid I'm about to do.

         Like the time I wondered how many Advil I could take before something would happen. I didn't want to die... I just ... wanted to punish myself? I've always hated myself- I believed that everyone has to hate someone- human nature, I suppose. Yet I can't hate others, so hating myself is the better option. I screw up so many damn times... and words don't work anymore so maybe actions would. So I begin to wonder about Advil, and eventually I take ten and find that really my body just is quite painless. So then it turns to twenty, then thirty, then forty, and  then finally come the fall it becomes sixty and my body finally retches and signals that yes, it had indeed learned a lesson.

         The same fascination with water- how cold did it have to be? Scissors- how sharp? Tile floors- how hard? So many questions and it was out of curiosity and self-punishment. Never do I want to die because I know, that doing that would hurt everyone far more. I've been hurt so much... I don't want that. Yet still, I need to feel something... anything other than this forsaken burning sensation in my brain from all the shit that keeps happening- that I keep remembering.

         I really do hate him. I hate both of them. I loved them both. One was my hero, one was my lover. And then they fucked it up. Now I can't trust anyone, least of all myself.

         Eventually comes the question of Nyquil. Google didn't tell me how many pills it would take to the center of dreamland. Ten? Twenty? The whole damn box? And the swirling... the dozing off... the feeling that you're in a fully lit room but yet you're maybe not happens. Then I begin to wonder, am I going to die? I didn't mean to die... God, if you please just give me a miracle, this one miracle- just this once.
         Don't let me die.

         I can't wait to get home- driving at night when the outside is so cold always makes me sleepy. I'm just looking forward to crawling into bed, snuggling beneath my blankets and letting another dreary day pass by while I escape into the only world that I can be happy in these days.
         My dream.