habitual slavery?

I've noticed an important trend in my visitations to Colorado. There seems to be a tendency to drink. And smoke. Parental influence may be a factor, but ultimately doesn't it come down to choice? So how does it make any sense at all to choose a habit that creates a reality that perpetuates escaping and not being present?

Moreover, it's just destructive.

I don't understand this profound urge to get so fucked up. Daily. Yet it's claws have me hooked, my body twisting around the razor sharp edge that pricks my emotions and triggers mental defense. And some days are better than others. These are not. My evenings end blurred.

I asked my father tonight how he was doing, aware that he was low and drifting far.
"Amber, I've told you before a million times. It's day to day, hour to hour, and minute to minute." His voice was wrinkled with frustration and remote bitterness.

"Well then wouldn't it be obvious that, especially given your condition, I'd want to ask how you are? I know how often you change Dad. In my own way I've experienced it, not to the extent and with the history you have, but I have ebbs and flows. And I've seen you here before, of corse I want to know where you're at. I love you and care about you."

It's hard to say how much thought could have been dedicated to what I was saying to him, and the sincere love I was trying to share. If you could divide a person's eyes into graphs of emotion, half of the apples in his eye's pies were distant and misted by the disorientation of sadness and personal rejection. The other slices were randomly cut by belief systems, fear, and loneliness caramelized in habitual slavery to his internal monster, the dark that penetrates the foundation of any smile. Wine glazed eyes.

He rolled up a joint and went downstairs without responding. I returned my bruised heart to chopping vegetables and stirring the bubbling stew. His sadness has set in. I wonder how long it will hover, sucking the life out of him.

If only I could cast a spell and banish it away, though it is still fat with my blood, sluggish from the feverish peppered flavor of anger that's been curing my flesh for years.

Somewhere in my body my own beast is growling, bumping against the walls I carefully placed in patterns of binding. Unknowingly blinded, emotional maze winding.

Rewind me. Find me.

Release me.

Please.