now I know of contentment unhinged memories, return. the shadow of nightlife excess, once cloaked happiness remains somewhere. inside a windowless room, I once lay on a mattress. awaiting a stray pub tourist. their pulsing veins met a lust for local city boy fodder hot night away from the girls. one morning, things changed a fist pounded on my door. there in front of me stood a mirror my twin brother. beyond there, on the grapevine he’d received news of who I’d become. not so much fun. in my lost excess, addiction no longer cared about whoever I was. but my brother with hazel eyes and good standing surface water porcelain cheeks, did. his wife and children also felt the ghosts I'd once confessed, still followed me around Jack Ripper’s cobbled East London. the knowing, instinctually something was wrong. my kin, the other twin signalled a breaking point. I broke later that day somewhere out there in Trafalgar Square. sat on Nelson’s Column, a band of pigeons shat all around us. we spoke the subject matter of my health. exhausted, I surrendered in his stone hard father arms. Nelson had fought off cultures that once came for British blood. I thought of what it would mean to be in line of sniper’s sight. that night, he stayed over rubbed tears from my cheeks and in my sleep, remained watchful. come crimson dawn morning things felt easier. I made coffee and eggs wrote in a diary, sent a letter overseas. days later I flew away.
a poem of gratitude: healing in itself. great work.
This is so sad. It will be sadder still if this is based on your personal experience