Drink after drink, toke after toke, pill after pill, we erode ourselves to the world. We dull and numb the mind to survive because the world rejects the burdens of their wars. They demand the bearer become the unburdensome. Drink after drink, toke after toke, pill after pill, we attempt the impossible.
To exist unbroken in a broken world is to wear a mask stitched from denial and silence. The world does not want our wounds—it wants compliance wrapped in the illusion of normalcy. We are not merely numbing pain; we are bargaining with it, negotiating terms that will always be unfavorable.
The burden does not leave; it only waits, patient and unyielding, for the moment the armor of intoxication cracks. We attempt the impossible because to stop would be to surrender. And despite everything, we still hope that one day, we will wake up and find ourselves free.
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Jake Smith is a law enforcement officer and former Army Ranger with four deployments to Afghanistan.
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