What could they possibly know? What could the world know about the things we drink away, if only for those few moments? To get a moment’s reprieve from the pain and suffering. A moment’s reprieve from those lost. From the violence endured. The friends sacrificed. The thing so many hate, yet chase until their own demise.
What the fuck world they know about hating that which you cannot help but love. How can one understand such a paradox? The paradox of wanting to destroy all that you love because you felt so undeserving. The anger that resides deep within that wants the world to feel all the pain you sought to shelter them from. To be the Receiver of Memories, faced with protecting or sharing.
Drink after drink, you know better, and yet, you want, need, every drink to unleash that which is trapped without. To feel the anger, the sorrow, the pain. To let it out with every punch, every scream, every tear. To feel, if only for a moment, the pain all over again. To feel alive through those lost.
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Jake Smith is a law enforcement officer and former Army Ranger with four deployments to Afghanistan.
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