Dear Decay,

Dear Decay,

I’m just writing to let you know that what you did for me that night a few years back really meant a lot to me. You gave me the motivation to slip from my skin, and enter a world much darker, but (funnily enough) much more soothing than the one that I was trapped in previously. Before you I was lost in a false reality of meaningless smiles and short-lived happiness. What you brought me, while deceptive and cruel, was a complete release from those that had wronged me. All those years back. I can still remember it as though it was yesterday, you tucked me into my bed at night as my parents fought downstairs. You made me listen to the screaming and the smashing bottles like so many cannon shells exposing the aggression and hatred. You made me watch as my friends turned, and the once-stable family life I had was destroyed.

You held me down as my father gurgled his drunken rants around the mouth of a whiskey bottle. At the time, I envisioned you as a monster, and I apologize for that. Not like you ever would’ve known… but I feel bad for thinking that in the first place. As the pressure built inside me, and my lungs squeezed out the last gasp of life inside, you forced me to hold on. Once again, I hated you for that.

That night, so many years ago, when I finally gave up… you opened my eyes. If I remember correctly, I was laying on the floor, wrists slit. I remember waking up to the smell of blood, which had soaked itself into the white carpet. I remember rolling over to see my writing notebook… every page scribbled over and over with every thought I held inside. I remember realizing that the years of torment and pain had finally amounted to something. And as I flipped through the pages, I realized that you had finally finished with me.

It’s been a long time since the night that I reached the decision that would forever change my perspective of the human life. The first night I saw the effects of your past actions, I was dumbfounded at how stupid I was not to pick up on it. The entire time, you were dragging me through the filth and shit until I reached a breaking point. Then, on the night I broke, you left me. It was you all along that made me the strong person I am today. The ruthless, cold-blooded author. The barrel-of-the-gun-breaking-your-teeth intensity.

It was you, all those years ago, that saved me by killing me. By giving me a chance to be resurrected. You beat me through the floor, and then forced me to crawl out into a world that had abandoned me. You left me to fend for myself.

And for this, I thank you.

Love,

Brett Bloom