Comfort.

trigger warnings for alcohol and drug mentions

Sometimes you seek comfort in the arms of strangers and that is alright. You crave physical intimacy, and you shudder at the sensation of unfamiliar lips on your own. Their bodies become maps to new worlds. "Touch me here," they whisper, and your hands slide over their skin in a place you never got to explore with someone else.

Sometimes you seek comfort in the company of slurred words and a spinning mind. There is a painful clarity in a high that is seamlessly painless. You do not understand it, but it feels like it understands you. You escape. Come back. You need you.

Sometimes you seek comfort in solitude. You feel the springs of your mattress underneath your body and think "I will not leave my bed today". The curtains are drawn and you lie on your side, tears sliding quietly into your pillow. I draw back quickly - some things are too private even for a lowly narrator to speak on.

Sometimes you seek comfort in friends. You reconnect with people you always meant to get back to but never did. You relearn them, and in the process you flame the smoking embers of what you used to be. You rediscover the joy of late night drives and early morning conversations. The constriction in your throat lightens in their presence.

You learn the difference between comfort being a distraction and comfort through an escape.

You will always seek comfort
sometimes in the unlikeliest of place
and sometimes in the usual avenues,
and sometimes you find it.