As you passed,
I kept seeing what I want to see,
That you weren’t gone yet,
That you still breathed.
What my eyes caught
Must have been
The sight of your spirit dancing serenely
Around what you’ve left behind,
As extreme heat leaves the road in a haze,
The road towards the dimensions unseen,
Yet dreamed of,
Journey with no end
On which you fly leaving us walking
In pain,
Yet in gratitude and reflections
Of your beautiful path.
Whatever happens, it’s never my fault.
What you say to me is never sincere.
How ever you wear your language for me to understand,
I know you’re wrong and your speech is a lie.
I am a rebel for the sake of nothing but my gain of something
That would feed an illusion
Capable of calming the old pain of all kinds.
You’ve got my history written down in your books,
And you seem to think that I am up to no good at all times,
And you tell me that you do for me all you can do
But one thing you cannot give me is freedom.
What would I do with this freedom, you ask,
If I presumably received it?
I don’t know.
Probably shoot myself up with dope
Like all the other times,
The crash-and-burns, the last times,
I mean those times I swore up and down they will be last times.
I’d probably do something that would cause my leg to break at another spot,
Or dislocate another knee,
Steal stuff here, trash an apartment there.
You know how it works for me.
You know it, but I still don’t trust you.
My anger against you is really against me,
But I didn’t just say that.
My clawed fingers I hug my face with as I growl loudly
Is my rage facing me
For it knows my bullshit and it smells my fear.
My war against the world is my war against me
The war that I can never let go of,
For I have to fight something.
You and the rest of caregivers
Fall victim to these battles,
For I will never admit the truth.
All I believe (or make myself believe and pray to)
Is that I am surrounded by lies,
No matter what you tell me,
Pushing my wheelchair down the never-ending hallways.
the image was copied from https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Facehugger thanks.
Thanks to Brian for the wall inspiration.
In the grey mist nothing was to be seen, or so it appeared. I ran fast, making jumps here and there. I yelled loudly, they were curses and shouts of joy. Growls were loud to the point that as they left my mouth, my throat hurt. Yet still I did it, because I wanted to express all of my anguish and joy of liberation which I thought I was experiencing. And when I was just about to make it out of the woods, I ran into something. I should’ve known, of course, what it was – I ran into it so many times before. Still somehow, I managed to forget each time. So much good time, so much forgotten in the midst of it. I hated the pain that pierced my head, I hated forgetting, but oh how I hated remembering! It would always appear just when I started to have a real good time. I looked at the wall that mounted above me, and I recalled more and more of the past instances. Resentments, pain, need for the cure, instantaneous relief, blinding intoxication, freedom at the tip of my tongue and all over my brain, and then – hitting the wall and all the self-loathing that came along with it…
No, that is not the wall to symbolize the isolation as in the great Pink Floyd album/movie, although in me past of self-destruction that certainly would come over for a visit and stay for a long time if I’d allow it… and I did.
Each time my mind wanted to party, even if it was a celebration of the day just for me, myself, and I, my body would perform all the necessary rituals, no matter how tired it may have been minutes prior. I’d run to the store to get booze so fast I’d beat an Olympic champion. And then the chug-chug-chug must-do and I was back in business of fun. Colors came back, and the reality would retreat. And since I could never stop if I started, I’d let party keep going. More beating Olympic champions would follow, and oh dear, how bad my stomach was ravaged, while my mind danced not realizing it was kept being raped!
And then would come that time when my spirit would be running in the grey mist of not seeing too clearly anymore and then BAM! I’d hit the wall. I’d be lying there wonder what the hell happened. Most of the time that would happen in the morning after. What a crash! Getting on with the day in “the morning after” was like a world war! And I could never learn from that lesson of which I had thousands.
Lessons! Oh, how well I tried to ignore those! I kept trying to bash my head through the wall. Just kept doing the same thing. Then I decided it would be smart to try and walk around the wall. My mind was looking for the loopholes in the Creation that would allow me out-smart my body. Mostly those attempts were based on the advises from other drinkers. Listening to those, I was rejoiced. The illusion that the grass is greener somewhere out there where we aren’t at yet didn’t want to die. I believed I could still find the way to be happy on my own terms, doing what I wanted, being reckless if they just let me, or dream all day long if life allowed it.
And yet I kept hitting the wall, only these times instead of being blinded by pain and growling helplessly, I’d be wondering aloud “Hey, I ate this time!” or “I was drinking water too!” or “Well, I wasn’t mixing anything!” And no, those attempts to calm down hangovers didn’t work for me. My body simply didn’t want to have anything to do with alcoholic intoxication beyond certain point. Problem was, I couldn’t stop drinking at any point except for brain shut down, or I’d be out of money, or the liquor store was closed.
The wall was a testimony to my being unteachable and lost in denial. Yet at the same time, all these times I failed to see that the wall was also the extremely useful limitation created for the sake of my self-preservation, my body trying to teach me a vital lesson. It was to signify my boundary I believed I wanted to and could cross, but my body and mind won’t allow me to. It worked just as the blackout was not a curse, but just my body shutting down on me so I wouldn’t kill myself with all the truly lethal massive dosage of ethyl spirits.
It is easier to see now that I was spending crazy amounts of money and time to pretty much kill myself each time over the last several years of my drinking “career”, while I was thinking I was having a good time, diving headlong into the illusion of running away from reality for a little while. The wall of my body and mind reactions saved me, and yet I felt I was weak and needed to strengthen it by building a seasoned drinker’s attitude and gut. Silly, but sad.
And that just how my mind and body reacted in the real time. The way my mind was screwed by my own hands during those years is sometimes hard to look back at, so crazy those thoughts and ideations were. I still say in the AA meetings that this recovery fellowship literally was the best thing that ever happened to me. No lie about that. I’ve learned about my limits. I’ve learned how not to run away from life, and I’m still better at it these days then in the past. I became better with living in my skin and accepting responsibilities. And I no longer go too crazy to kill myself and deny it.
Thank you for fourteen years of sobriety!
the image was copied from https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/b3xhua/found_it_the_wall/ thanks.
He sang
He couldn’t drink the girl pretty
She really wasn’t it, I guess.
I tried to drink her pretty,
And I failed too.
Her name was Life,
Her last name was On-its-terms.
Must be French.
I was stubborn though.
I tried, and I tried, and I tried.
She wasn’t. Stubborn, I mean.
She just was.
She sat there like a rock
And smiled sadly,
Probably hoping I’d get it,
But it took me a while:
Years of anger,
Brain cells wasted in millions,
And hope in fellow men – in shovels,
Only it wasn’t their fault.
False hopes and unrealistic expectations did it.
I cared for things that wasn’t there,
Although all that time I had people
Telling the truth to my face,
Truth I didn’t like.
I always thought Plan B would work,
But I got to letter Z and I was still profoundly fucked.
Now I look at the sky with eyes sober
As the morning dew,
(unless the air got drunk on a whim)
And say “thank you” a lot.
I still try,
You know, coffee it pretty.
But I think it’s a different kick –
No one gets hurt,
And the bills get paid.
She still sits there like a rock,
But I know her smile is happier now.
the front image was copied from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/k2-last-problem-of-the-himalayas/554618/. thanks.
Soiled mattress.
Bed creaks every time he makes the slightest turn.
Light bulbs are broken, so at night darkness is absolute.
Window panes are broken to open no more,
Glass is gone, wind blows in uninvited at all times.
Ceiling leaks, cold blobs hit him on the head,
Waking him up in shivers.
Wallpaper shouldn’t be called that anymore,
“Nightmare of a stained paper in ribbons” is more appropriate.
How can he live like that?
What kind of a person could ignore
The glaring signs of such disgust and stagnation.
What a disaster of existence that is!
I looked at that and shivered,
But not in repulsion.
More of recognition.
I forgot that I used to live like that
Not physically, perhaps, but in my mind.
Stagnation of thinking and reasoning was my unconscious motto.
I used to poison myself with things that I believed made me well,
That helped me escape reality and emotional pain,
And so I lived in a dump of a mind,
Disaster of a belief,
Brain room with leaking ceiling and stained walls shred into ribbons,
Sleeping in a soiled bed that creaked loudly and annoyingly
Each time I turned.
Every once in a while, I would wake up from that sleep
That felt eternal, oblivious to reality,
And I looked at what I found myself at,
Terrified, refusing to believe
What have I got myself into on a seemingly permanent basis,
And scared of the truth of it, I’d shut my eyes
And try to sleep some more,
Resisting reality, closing my eyes on the self borne insanity.
It’s a miracle that one day I woke up and stayed that way.
I could no longer breathe in the stench
Of my own mental decomposition,
Could no longer fail to see
The almost complete destruction of sense and equilibrium.
I stopped making peace with enslavement.
Stopped letting the fairytale sooth me for another day.
It’s a miracle that I still stay awake.
My room is clean now.
The bed is fixed, and I do laundry regularly.
I fixed the windows and changed the wallpaper.
I will not let the lie win.
I don’t allow myself fall into forgetting what I am
And how I can so easily fall into a trap
Of embracing the escape from balance.
image was copied from https://blog.flaviomarinho.com.br/jovem-posta-foto-de-vestido-provocante-mas-bagunca-de-quarto-rouba-a-cena/ and mangled by me. thank you.
When you say, “Don’t tell me what to do.”
When you think you know everything, but keep it inside,
Thinking how much smarter you are than the average bear.
When reality stares you in the face
In a manner you cannot ignore,
And you still do things your way,
Which is the opposite.
When you hang out with people
That always led you to a wrong situation and bad health.
When you know what you should be doing
Because you witnessed and felt the benefits of it,
And yet you go for the immediate gratification,
The satisfaction of here and now.
When you walk away and slam the door, knowing you are wrong,
Cultivating your anger
So that you will “show them” one day.
When you are shown a better way to live
And you spit on it
And live the way that always hurt you, –
That is when you are poking your alcoholic bear
Who will wake up and destroy your peace of mind
And raise hell in a manner
That you still haven’t learned
To safely deal with.
the image was copied from http://musingsfromanotherstar.blogspot.com/2014/09/winnie-the-pooh-is-a-redshirt.html thanks.
There are times you hear amazing things when you least expect them, and half of that time it’s when you really need to hear them. It’s when you are either “losing it” or you’re finding something you really don’t need. I heard many things in AA that have changed my life around and for the better, and it’s getting better still. Wisdom doesn’t run out, and humor is on top of it, as well. The funny way to say things is sometimes the best, because it hits you right between the eyes and a good laughter is what you need often, I think. The joke often carries wisdom, so it’s two wins in one.
I heard a person sharing that he came to AA because of his back problem. There were too many people on his back. At least 90 per cent could agree that AA is the best chiropractic, what do you think?
One of the things that was said and that has struck me the other day was “my ego is not my amigo.” Not only it is witty, it is also so true. How many times I wanted things to be my way, how many times I caressed my wild and selfish inner child to, as a result, hurt someone who didn’t deserve it? Don’t answer that.
Another fella was sharing about people interrupting and cross-talking, that’s when you share, and people argue with you. We gather in those rooms to speak our minds without being judged, and yet we also need to learn how not to communicate. Still though, with all the info we have on communicating with others, we still suck at it. Mostly it happens, I think, because we ignore a lot of things that we know we should be doing, or we just avoid hearing about them in the first place. In my group we had one of those situations a couple of days ago. So, in direct reaction to that, the person said that you can take the horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink, and even if you do, you can’t teach it to scuba dive. I don’t think I could say it better.
For those of us who like to use big concepts, and most importantly hide behind them, there is no mercy for those people. This one witty individual pointed out that most of menacing smart words end with “-ism,” and what is stands for is “I Sponsor Myself”, thus providing for the denial and arrogance to take you into a choke hold. For example, “atheism” could be quite detrimental to the spiritual program that AA is, no?
the image was copied from https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/m/maintenance_man.asp thanks.
Trezvennost II 