Spackled

Prose from SHS.

Photo by Aimee Vogelsang on Unsplash, edited by Slaidey Valheim.

I cried my eyes raw for a weekend,
drinking a bottle of gin each day,
but the sensation of losing him wasn’t painful;
it was just new and scary.

I was too tangled in a sense of grief
to let myself touch the excitement
brewing in the recesses of my newly unshackled heart.

I didn’t have an impending disaster heading my way,
compromise that never seemed to favor me,
or a need to write a happier sounding
fake set of facts for my life;
cover my existence up like a professional hitman.

I was me.
Not us.
Just me.

As I moved my hands around my body
— my head, my throat, my chest —
I found all the things I’d been missing;
gaping holes in myself I’d given away,
finally ready to fill back in.

Thanks for reading! If you like my style of prose, please make sure you follow the Bits & Bones publication, where I’ll be dropping short speculative non-fiction Mondays and Wednesdays!

This excerpt is one of many that I’ll be posting to Medium from the collection Strangling Heartstrings (a memoir in prose).

If you’d like to get your hands on a copy (featuring more stories exclusive to the ebook) you can get it on Amazon or download it from my Patreon (Skull+ tier, along with many other creative goodies).