“A Cure” by A.A.

I have swallowed chaos for sixteen years, and I have desperately searched for a cure.

I have swum in the depths of the sea, within the walls of the ocean’s caves.

I have travailed a thousand miles, through valleys and pastures.

I have been scorched by the tormenting heat of the beaming sun in the middle of the desert.

I have climbed every mountain in the harshest of winters.

I have journeyed through a lifetime of terrain, and yet, it appears that the cup of peace will never be in my grasp.

This chaos, the one that was latched to my lips, was not by my own volition. It was by force.

He grabbed the cup and forced me to swallow the chaos that which still dwells inside me.

He spoke so peaceably to me stating that it was okay to drink something so bitter, as long as I could keep it a secret.

“To share its contents, its ingredients, would only make the taste worse on your palette,” he said.

I believed him.

The chaos silenced me.

I have swallowed chaos for sixteen years, and I have desperately searched for a cure.

I have felt the pang of violence, and all its associated helplessness.

The mourning of my innocence, and the destruction of my childhood.

The cycle continued, ever repeating itself.

I believed this was my only way to heal.

I believed that the repeating patterns of pain would save me.

“To be harmed is to be loved,” I thought.

I believed that the only way to heal was to live with and in the chaos.

To be one with chaos.

Anything that was not chaos was unfamiliar.

And anything unfamiliar was dangerous.

“To be harmed was to be healed.”

I have swallowed chaos for sixteen years, and I have found its cure.

Although I have drank chaos,

Although I have been told to be silent,

Although I have been a victim of patterns,

I have found the peace I so desperately wanted to grasp during my youth.

It is now in my hands.

I have found the cure to my misery.

And the cure is to be heard.

-A.A.