The Writer’s Corner features poetry, essays, short stories, satire and various fiction and non-fiction from SCAD Atlanta students. To submit your own work for the Writer’s Corner, email features@scadconnector.com.
Sobriety by Manav Chordia
I’m a hypocrite, not the kind that gives too much trouble in the world but the sort that makes mistakes in order to safeguard others. I’m ordinary, approachable and nonthreatening — a submissive puppet in the game of life. With thunderstorms and hurricanes trying to cleanse away sins, I bind onto them like leeches to skin. I justify these sins as an experience of humanity and its many flaws; for some it might be lust, for others greed but the most gruesome of them all is self-rejection.
As I look at my reflection in the foggy bathroom mirror, I clean up the fog and smile at the boy, but as I stare deeper into his eyes, tears come out of mine like a broken faucet. There is nothing worse than being rejected by yourself. I was done trying to win wars that shouldn’t even exist, but who am I in this large civilization driven by passion, finance and novelty? With my optimism and my versatility, I ignore the societal validation to keep my sanity and move away from foreseeable troubles.
With the realm of the unknown revolving above the heads of the blue bubblers, I try to behave the way my mother asked me to — dumb, beautiful and ready for anything. I’m my job — the money, the boys, the beds and the never-ending supply of drugs. For a moment, I was in heaven and then I had become heaven; everyone wanted a piece of me, even the bits I wouldn’t appreciate. They liked the worst of me; they loved the best of me. I became a central figure in the bedroom, but I wasn’t allowed to speak. I was used to being tied up, wrapped, beaten, exposed and other kinks I don’t want to discuss.
My lungs are giving out toxicity with every exhale, but my mind just dives into an internal review of everything, protecting me from every demon out there but myself. I couldn’t believe what I had become: a sex addict. And here I sit and pride myself for being a heroin virgin. My duality is truly flawed and disallows conventional thought processes, but I’m a smart guy — or so my feelings have forced me to become. I am resistant to the world’s suffering as long as I am not sober.
With a cigarette in my hand, and a pencil in my other, I try to undo the problems I create with every passing moment. I start by making a list of things that I must abstain myself from. The people I must avoid and the ones to whom I must apologize. It is I who is in control, not the world, not the substance and definitely not the people; for as long as I can hold my pencil, I’m going to fight for my sobriety.
