Feeling queasy…

Today I have felt unwell. For the first time in years I feel queasy and not myself.

I am used to pain. I am not used to being unwell.

I haven’t had a cold in years. I don’t get ill. I don’t like this.

Please pray for me.

Thanks.

An open letter to an alcoholic…

• 

This reminds me of you when your head gets yanked out of the sand.

Dear M,

You were boring. The night you started messaging me I got bored. Went to sleep. You crashed into my bedroom door with a flashlight and woke me and refused to leave.

You seemed so sincere. So I stopped yelling at you to get out and told you to go downstairs. You were so meek in obeying. I got dressed and came down to see what you wanted to talk about. I noticed then it was 3am.

You made me a cup of tea. You were so sweet.

You remembered that I get cold feet. You tried to warm them. I thought that wow, the boring man is a sweet drunk.

I kept trying to send you home. So many times. You made so many excuses to not go. And finally, that thing you shared a house with yanked you back. Abusively. Just how it always referred to you. Idiot. …doesn’t matter, it’s Mike’s… he’s a complete idiot…

Always putting you down behind your back.

The first time I knew you lied was when I asked you if you ever had had a beard. Your eyes travelled to your housemate for guidance…you replied no. But I knew I had seen you with one.

I didn’t like that you groped my legs that early morning/night when I should have been sleeping. I was furious. Of course, I should have told the thing. My mistake. I should have called the police instead of indulging you. The heartache it would have saved.

I asked you to make amends. You didn’t even finish that. But before not finishing, you again molested me and then seduced me. I wanted a spare bed or a blanket, but somehow I ended up in your bed. Although there was another one you could have used. You had entirely separate rooms. You could have used your housemate’s bed.

I did not want sex or to be naked, I wanted sleep. I had already been asleep. No one rapes me since I was raped, so we had consensual sex. It was pretty good considering. And again in the morning and the afternoon.

I felt nothing for you. Especially hearing the fake laugh into your phone to your housemate.

Things happened. Extreme rudeness from the housemate. (I should have told her you had groped my legs and taken me to your bed.)

My friend chucked stuff you promised to dispose of for me over the fence. I was not happy about that. I was cross. Your housemate threw them the next day nearly giving me a head injury.

I made a statement to the police about you. I wish I had never withdrawn it. Never let you take me to your bed twice before I told you about that statement to the police.

I still felt nothing for you. Then you started visiting me. I wanted not to be used. I wanted to be touched but not love.

I liked you. You were kind, thoughtful. Then it got more than talking. I liked it. I liked you.

I was fine when you lied to me. I realised I was better off without a coward, a bullied man.

Then your ex phoned and she was stunned at how much you had opened up to me. She thought I would see you again.

I was fine until you did come back to see me. When I realised your desire for me, I finally fell in love.

And then you became a nightmare. Using me, being lustful. Being lurid in your boredom. I realised the depth of your alcoholism. You looked terrible.

When we coincided at the Custom House, my companion and I moved to be in the sun. Not to avoid you. After all, I had done nothing wrong. You looked like two strangers who decided to share a table because it was crowded. Not even friends or housemates.You gazed me for far too long and often. Those sunglasses don’t suit you. You looked at me in a way that told me everything.

Your friends, Simon Bagnall, Matt Hammond, all of them, enable your alcoholism. They don’t care that you broke my laptop, they just enable you to avoid taking responsibility for your life. All I want is a laptop that works. And someone to help you get sober, which comes through connection.

You will die an early death. Everyone who loved you, hates you now. Your Dad, your ex, me, your housemate hates you too. Her alcoholism is more advanced than yours.

You know she is foul when it is drunk. She was vile after my sister died. Abusive and vile. A drunk. You admitted it that morning at 3am.

Your path is set. Unless you get sober. Get connection in your life. Instead of having your housemate at your tail abusing you, mocking you, making you small.

I wonder if you ever will. Get sober. I’m not actually capable of hate. I just want my laptop replaced or fixed. I’d like the truth to be told.

You said you would tell me what your housemate has over you when you are ready. I’m waiting. You owe me so many amends.

Now I know that your housemate wrote to the next tenants, telling her lies. But they were truly ghastly. They were clearing the shed when I knocked to ask if they needed anything. She looked at me so strangely that I wondered if you had left all my books in the shed. They had my name in them. The ones you said you would take to charity shops. Now I know they got a letter from your housemate. I had a year of acute pain, but the second letter got rid of such cruel people.

The current tenants showed me the letter, and are disgusted that anyone would behave like that.

I don’t hate, it’s not in me. I am sorry for you.