Poetry: A Letter Postdated Nov. 11, 2024

I have been thinking about God a lot lately.
I don’t think it has to do with the holiday.
More so
that when I was a young man
I often argued with the craven voices infecting my brain
—those of poisonous vice and unmitigated regret—
but up until recently,
a clearer voice emerged.

That voice comes from somewhere
(perhaps divinity, perhaps mania…
BUT it is there).
I have countless regrets in my life,
and I spent many years lost
and reckless.

Trauma, narcissism, alcohol
will do that to you.
It changes you from kindness to hate,
respectable to deplorable,
a cruel simalacrum of your former self.

All of this in the pursuit of ecstasy
or self-imposed apathy.
This is a long way of saying
that I am sober.
This is a letter to myself
to remind me that change can happen.

I love my life.
Change can always happen.
For the better.