Achilles in the Mirror

I’ve been lied to enough times
that the words started sounding like prophecy.
Useless.
Hopeless.
Broken beyond repair.

Some of those words came from women I loved,
others from the bottom of bottles
I was too numb to put down.
Alcohol has a cruel way of whispering your worst fears
in a voice that feels like truth.

But the funny thing about falling,
fall hard enough,
and eventually you hit something solid.
The ground.
Yourself.
The place where denial finally burns off
and all that’s left is what hurts
and what matters.

Like Achilles,
I thought my strength was something given to me,
by love, by validation, by someone else’s approval.
Turns out strength is quieter than that.
It’s built in the mornings when shame is a weight
and you get up anyway.
It’s forged in sobriety,
in the choice to face the world
without the armor of intoxication.

Yes, I’ve been called useless.
But here’s the truth they never saw:
You can’t call a man “done”
when he’s still learning how to rise.

Sobriety isn’t my victory lap
it’s the battlefield where I’m rebuilding.
Stronger.
Sharper.
Honest in ways alcohol never let me be.

And if I resurrect a better version of myself
it won’t be to prove anyone wrong.
It will be because I finally stopped believing
the lies that tried to bury me.

Achilles fell, too.
But fall long enough
and eventually you learn how to stand
in your own legend.