"Hi, I'm Michelle, I'm an addict." Her label hung in the air like a leash on a small child, keeping her in check, making sure we all knew what she was - a failure to society. Her name was like a string on a balloon…not the exciting part, not the part the made her special, just the part that made her stay in this reality. Her eyes were lonely, desperate; the fire that had once been lit up like Fourth of July fireworks was now gone, but the burning embers pushed on through the days. She continued speaking in her low voice, telling us of things we didn't want to know, things we would come to be familiar with in our years. She was what some of us are, what some of us will be, what some of us have overcome. Referring to her addiction as a disease took its burden off her shoulders, but the weight of struggling through recovery was still there. Her curly hair hung around her face in unwashed ringlets, half held up by a rubber band - as if she was trying to hide behind it, behind what could be beauty but now was a sagging face, full of despair, misery, regret, and all those horrid things we never think of when trying something fun, new, exciting, seductive. Her stormy blue eyes, not of an exciting thunder-and-lightning storm but a persistent rain, stared down at the wooden desk, not willing to look up and face the eyes of a dozen strangers, listening to her tale of failure and accusing her of not being perfect.
