Lullabies for Suffering: Tales of Addiction Horror

by Mark Matthews

As Joe Hill so aptly noted, Horror isn't about extreme sadism; it's about extreme empathy.

Our fractured selves suffer and crave for healing—or if not healing, at least relief from suffering, if but for a little while.

With his true nature written in sweat all over my skin, my dreams did not, for the first time in years, try to drown me in anxiety.

Bookstores and libraries provided succor, a spiritual peace that saw us return to something almost human, cowed by the awe of a hundred thousand voices clamoring to be heard above the din of reverent quiet.

I was quite adept at disappearing and the terror of unbecoming.

Her words are like rain and you miss rain.

I carried that in a backpack of other disappointments I lugged with me all the time, everywhere.

He felt her soul grind to dust in his arms.

That’s what love was, he thought. Being the warm blanket for somebody else. Being the rain that brought their parched roots back to life. It was being their tether so they didn’t float off into space. It was growth and pain and responsibility. Love was a crematorium that lit you up and burned you out at the same time.