Trailblazer
Mark McConville
Andy Warhol. Alcoholism (bottle with hands, in color).
I reach out to her and tell her the world is in transition. We are ravished by worry and despair, and we are naturally curious about what will unfold, marking our calendars for a revolution for trust from world leaders. These are strange times, and I cannot enforce change when I am a common man, a man dredging through personal trauma and mental imbalance. And I felt, in a train of thought, to barricade us in, board the windows and lock the doors so this malicious virus could not pass through. My mind plays tricks on me, and doing this would make me a madman, a man who would be rallied to the inner sanctum of insanity.
Madness? I often think about my scratched brain. A mind searching for clarity. When this obstacle hit, when the world was put into limbo, when the quiet fell, a silence not so endearing, I cascaded into myriads of bottles and stacked them up like empires. She has helped me though, this trailblazer. Aided me through 12 years of mental instability. Days when I did not want to rise from a comfortable bed, days when the only outcome would be drinking my liver and throwing up my guts. Revolutions were not valid; hope did not come around like a peaceful ally, normality was presumed dead, and my life was slowly crashing into a blurry void.
She also catches my ghosts and pulverises them. Trapping them so I do not become frightened or despondent. She gives me my pills before she heads to work. She tells me stories. She laughs, cries, comforts me when the days dance upon my mind attempting to crush every sinew of joy. These moments I want to capture because I am scared that I will lose her…
And horror stories arise every hour. They ascend like phantoms, embracing the alterations. I often shroud my eyes and ears from seeing and hearing the heart-stopping news. All my bones ache with the red alerts, the breaking stories which send sorrow like a beam of light throughout the world.
This year has cut deeply. I can almost hear the cries of over a billion people trying to masquerade their feelings. It is not possible to do so, as emotions run high, as melancholy strikes profoundly. Detesting the world, we must not, as it is screaming, bellowing, echoing in pain. We do not need more screams from the world; we need no more damage; we need unity.
A year on, a year stuck in my own demanding thoughts, I have become prone to feeling
distant from what is occurring. The trailblazer, my love, aides me through the noise, the reverberations. She draws me out of my room. We walk. We embrace all that is good about the world. I have not changed or broke the latch that leads to a vibrant mind, but I have come to terms, seeing a more refined outcome.
I have even stopped drinking. I do not miss the hangovers and the churning stomach, the sickness, the concerning thoughts. As the world heals, I will heal with it. And when a glint of normality appears, I will try to prevail and not distance myself from dreams.
Mark McConville is a freelance music journalist from Scotland. He also likes to write dark fiction and a plethora of his stories have been published by Bristol Noir. His debut poetry chapbook is slated for release in October 2021. It will be published by Close To The Bone. @writer1990mark