The Night Before the Fall.
It always starts the same way , too quiet. The kind of quiet that hums just beneath your skin, crawling around in the spaces your thoughts used to fill. The world slows down, and every breath feels heavy with something you can’t quite name , fear, guilt, need. It’s all tangled together.
You tell yourself you’re just thinking, just sitting with your thoughts. You’re not planning anything. You’re not that far gone. But deep down, you can already feel the pull. That whisper in the back of your mind ,soft, familiar, dangerous , saying,
You start the ritual. The lies form before the craving even peaks. You convince yourself you deserve it ,after all, you’ve been good, you’ve stayed clean, you’ve suffered enough. You think about how good it would feel to finally quiet everything, to stop hearing the constant roar of regret in your chest. Maybe just one night of peace.
But peace isn’t what you’re chasing. Not really. You’re chasing escape, from yourself, from the memories, from the disappointment you carry like a shadow. You start rehearsing excuses in your mind: It’s just a slip, everyone slips. I can come back from this. You’ve said it before. You’ve meant it before.
But this time feels different. There’s a heaviness to the air, a sense that something is breaking inside you. You think about the people who love you, who’ve fought for you, cried for you, forgiven you more times than they should have. You imagine their faces when they find out , again. A mix of pain and exhaustion. The kind that stops believing words like “
And yet… you’re still here, fingers shaking, heart racing, bargaining with yourself and with a God you’re not sure still listens. You tell yourself maybe this will be the last time. Maybe it won’t even be that bad. But a darker thought creeps in , maybe this will be the time I don’t make it back.
And part of you doesn’t even care. Because the truth is, you’re tired. Tired of fighting, tired of pretending, tired of being the comeback story that never really ends.
So you sit there in the half-light, staring at the ghost of who you used to be. You know what’s about to happen. You know where it leads. But the craving is louder than the warnings now , louder than love, louder than reason.
And as the night closes in, you make the choice you swore you never would again. Not because you want to, but because in this moment, you can’t remember how to do anything else
You tell yourself you’re just thinking, just sitting with your thoughts. You’re not planning anything. You’re not that far gone. But deep down, you can already feel the pull. That whisper in the back of your mind ,soft, familiar, dangerous , saying,
just one more time.
You start the ritual. The lies form before the craving even peaks. You convince yourself you deserve it ,after all, you’ve been good, you’ve stayed clean, you’ve suffered enough. You think about how good it would feel to finally quiet everything, to stop hearing the constant roar of regret in your chest. Maybe just one night of peace.
But peace isn’t what you’re chasing. Not really. You’re chasing escape, from yourself, from the memories, from the disappointment you carry like a shadow. You start rehearsing excuses in your mind: It’s just a slip, everyone slips. I can come back from this. You’ve said it before. You’ve meant it before.
But this time feels different. There’s a heaviness to the air, a sense that something is breaking inside you. You think about the people who love you, who’ve fought for you, cried for you, forgiven you more times than they should have. You imagine their faces when they find out , again. A mix of pain and exhaustion. The kind that stops believing words like “
I’m sorry” or “I’ll do better.”
And yet… you’re still here, fingers shaking, heart racing, bargaining with yourself and with a God you’re not sure still listens. You tell yourself maybe this will be the last time. Maybe it won’t even be that bad. But a darker thought creeps in , maybe this will be the time I don’t make it back.
And part of you doesn’t even care. Because the truth is, you’re tired. Tired of fighting, tired of pretending, tired of being the comeback story that never really ends.
So you sit there in the half-light, staring at the ghost of who you used to be. You know what’s about to happen. You know where it leads. But the craving is louder than the warnings now , louder than love, louder than reason.
And as the night closes in, you make the choice you swore you never would again. Not because you want to, but because in this moment, you can’t remember how to do anything else
22-25, F
