Hope for His Recovery

Hope for His Recovery 

By Annette Camp 

June 3, 2025

Tonight, I whispered to the moon:

Let him come back whole.

Let him come back happy.

Let him remember how it feels

to sleep without worry,

to wake without pain.

This silence aches, but it’s

softer than the anxiety that 

used to gnaw me awake at 2am,

wondering if he was cold,

curled up in the backseat of a truck,

or scared in the back of his van.

I imagined him in the corner of the

crowded shelter, shoulders hunched,

eyes darting, trying to sleep.

And zipped inside a damp tent,

pitched beneath trees that

offered no comfort, only cover.

And holed up in a cheap hotel,

where the TV hums in the background

but can’t drown out the storm of

thoughts that rumble like thunder,

crashing one over the next,

memories and regrets colliding.

And crouched behind bushes,

praying not to be seen or woken.

And curled up behind surfboards,

just to steal a moment of rest,

while the world moved on, unaware

of his hidden suffering.

Nine months feels like a lifetime

when my arms are empty, but

I would rather miss him here

than lose him out there to the

quiet drowning in the fast

undertow of addiction.