Came to Believe

When you wish upon a star,
when you tire of who you are,
when the things you had to keep
make you want to take a leap...

When trite phrases fail to hide
the pain, the agony of insane lives
and hearts cry out to Power unknown —
when strangers offer words of hope,
changing striving for to open heart —
when one person living truth,
mirrors hope, what life could be —
when a mind is forced to face
a world that's larger than the rules —

When we finally face stark truth:
our futile tries can't stop the pain,
we have no power to manage food

then truth appears, perhaps sudden,
a spectacular upheaval,
maybe slowly, awareness growing —
still, indisputable change,
a coming to believe.

Decadence

As to two of you men, whose stories I have heard, there is no doubt in my mind that you were 100% hopeless, apart from divine help. ~ ​Alcoholics Anonymous, ​page 43

What was it like
in the throes of addiction?
How miserable were you
to have fled to these rooms?
How low a bottom did you reach
before straining upward,
out from the pit?
My heart goes out to you
yet undercurrents force distance,
retreat. It seems that your
neediness will suck life from me,
will drag you with me, ensnared,
submerged. Tell me – even just hint —
a corner will emerge, the pain will recede.
Does not what is good prevail
in the end?

My Soul's Size

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. ~ Booker T. Washington

Sometimes I feel so small,
puny, insignificant...
and never more than those times
I put someone else down,
belittle them, disdain them,
dishonor them.
Why would I need to do that
to anybody who didn't make me feel
small
insignificant
puny
a failure?
When I allow them size
I grow.

All Lightness and Hope

When I heard the words, “I am powerless over food,” I felt a surge of relief, a letting loose of a heavy burden, and my spirit danced with joy. With the obsession broken, I am all lightness and hope, reaching out like a child toward the growth that was lost to me. ~ For Today (Kindle Locations 2605-2607).

Aha! That's ​it!​So simple, so basic,
so obvious – now that you said it.
And such a relief
to find others of my ilk,
more of my kind,
a gathering of kin.
Enough to do a happy dance
and to know that Snoopy
must have learned some great truth,
some eternal fact
as mysterious and obvious
as the simple confession,
"I'm ​powerless​ over food."
It's not my fault!

Like a Wave

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Isolation, a habit,
a comfort zone,
a refuge from anger,
from hurtful words,
from violence.
We've been there,
but now we're here —
in recovery, in hope!
God is in me like the ocean
in a wave,
not like a blueberry in a muffin.
And I'm in God, where he is,
what he is, like he is
so long as I surrender,
so long as I seek
to know and to do
his next right thing for me.

Susan Young's Baja California morning picture

Okay

God didn't promise rose gardens;
Big Book promises speak not
of vanishing economic insecurity.
Instead, it's fear —
of people and of economic insecurity —
that will leave us. Hoarding possessions,
seeking riches, playing to win
as though having most means victory...
The rule books controvert.
Don't grab at the material but store treasure
beyond thieves' reach. Sell your riches,
young ruler, and set your sights above.
If sober father never has much money again
his family will admire what he tries to be,
not get. With Paul we can be content
in any state, in ​this​ state.
It's none of my business what I own,
what I weigh, what people think.
When I surrender, show up, and do God's will
I'll be okay — I'll thrive!

I Have a Right

I have a right to take up space. I have a right to exist. I take in and give out life fully and freely. ~ Louise Hay, Love Your Body

Clutter. Hoarding. Collecting. Piles.
Metaphors for making room,
for claiming title to real estate,
to space, to being. But when the piles
leave no room for me,
when the stuff fills it all,
squeezing out life, penning me in,
then it's time for the metaphor —
the placeholder both literal and symbol —
to yield, to make room, to be abolished
with a few crumbs put in their place
so there is space for me, a venue claimed,
my dominion representing the right I have
to be.
To live.

Red Rover Red Rover

Nine years old, the new girl in town...
a little town, no strangers, just friends —
except me. They tried to count me in.
One little boy wanted to call me
to run from our line, break through his.
He didn't know my name but called,
"Red rover, red rover..." What name?
Innovate! "Let Fat Domino come over."
I think I know who he was. A good friend
through the years. He wasn't being mean.
I wasn't angry at him. Only at the pudgy girl
who took off running, crying so hard
she didn't break through.

How Proud?

We are rarely proud when we are alone. ~ Voltaire

False fronts don't work when you build them,
maintain them, prop them up. Well, maybe
for others, for strangers, sometimes even —
perhaps for mere moments —
with family and close folk.
But for yourself? It's like performing magic,
trying to fool yourself about where the pea is,
how you got the rabbit in there,
where the dove could have come from...
If you're fooled, it's not magic.
And when it's more, when it's life,
then that you can't hide from you either.
When it's life pretending and false fronts
not only don't fool you but – if you cling to them —
propel you to doubt, to fear, to self-pity,
back to addiction.

Triage

Can the patient be saved?

Depends on what you mean.
Her immortal soul?
Oh, yeah.
These martyrs have it made.
She’s lived in hell through a
marriage with a lout. Nothing
post mortem could phase her.

Pshaw. You know that’s not
what I mean.

Physically? She’s not too far
gone, lots of stress injuries
even to muscles and ligaments
not from exertion but from,
well – stress.

Come on. Quit being cute.
I’m serious.

I’m serious, too. The levity’s
a cover for my spirit rupturing
when I see the psychic pain.

I know. Can she be saved?

Yeah. She’s reached the bottom.
She’s ready to give up using all
her substantial resources trying
to hold it all together, to make
a life for the kids he taunts,
to build her self-respect that’s
atrophied under his onslaughts,
to grow against his attempts
to espalier her like a bonsai tree.

And reaching the bottom is good?

Oh, essential. Now she can let go
reach up, admit she can’t,
and God’s there, waiting for
the slightest hint of her invitation
to come in and fix it all

So she’ll live.

Oh, more than live. Now she’ll
thrive, she’ll fly, soaring to
heights of talent and energy and
success she’d buried so deep and
so long she’d thought they never even
existed when they’re who she is.
Yes, now finally – she’ll live!

Dignity

What is dignity without honesty? ~ Cicero

Pomp and splendor are bling and glitz
when the emperor struts proudly – but bare.
Learned speeches and eloquent locution
may draw applause and adoration,
lionization and emulation. But vocabulary
and articulation remain void vainglory
when truth and earnest passion
fall by the wayside, too modest and base
for the show.

If We're Stuck

If we're stuck in the past, it's resentment. If we're stuck in the future, it's fear. ~ Diana H.

Obsession. Fixation. Bedevilment
ensnaring my life. Escape?
Impossible! No matter how long sprung,
the trap can't be loosened
but digs deeper, crushing bone,
tearing flesh as the wrong
plays endlessly, looping day after day,
year upon year. Should I manage
against all odds to wrest out
from the infinite loop,
to move to tomorrow, escaping yesterday,
the visions loom, a gaping maw of hell
sucking me in, terrifying, terrorizing,
paralyzing me as fear cowers me,
immobilized, rooted in fear.
When escape feels an impalpable fiction,
futile, ephemeral...
Only then do I find relief.
The trap has no teeth
when I dwell in today.

Oops!

NaHaiWriMo poetry prompt for September 17: OOPS! Write about something that turns out not quite the way you had planned. A mistake, clumsiness, thinking one thing but doing another, slipping, sliding, goofing, embarrassing yourself to yourself or others, awkwardness etc.

Are you playing with my mind?
You ask me to sponsor you
then everything you say applies to me,
my life, my issues, my recovery.
Even when you don't disclose the key,
the answer, the program truth —
your question brings words from me
unexpected, not my thoughts, not my
wisdom but foreign, channeled
and while you claim to find the piece,
the truth you seek, I know the words
are not for you, but just what I need
to hear.

Vertical Haiku

The prompt for September 16 at NaHaiWriMo:  Vertical 5. Carlos' prompt earlier resulted in a great bunch of haiku. Let's do it again. 5 lines, one word each leaving out “a” “an” “the.”

Program motto: Pass it on.

Love's
bucket
brigade
delivering
hope

Necessary Willingness

Like a freight train roaring over me
like a runaway bull aiming for me
doubt hovers over me, ominous,
assuring me of the certain onset
of my demise should I not cower,
should I step outside the comfort zone,
fragile as even that may be.
But safety is not safe so long as I hear
that nagging, niggling voice urging me
to that commitment I gave, that promise,
that offer I made of myself as tool
or building block or publicist — whatever!
It's better to try to stave off fear, standing — exposed —
in the face of a charging bull
than to renege on my offer of self to God.

Wasted

Looking back on a barren landscape
of wasted time — minutes, hours, days...
I can stand, dismayed at the deprivation,
at the desolation. Or I can look forward
with resolve toward recompense,
toward vigor, toward life.

Housecleaning

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished
to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to
death, so that we may serve the living God!
For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new
covenant, that those who are called may receive the
promised eternal inheritance – now that he has died as
a ransom to set them free from the sins committed
under the first covenant. ~ Hebrews 9:14-15 (NIV)

So we clean house with the family, asking each
morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way
of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 83

A personal housecleaning
ridding my life not just
of pesky clutter,
undone to-do lists,
well-aged New Years Resolutions,
but of deadly stuff,
acid eating away
at my heart, at my lungs,
at my being.
Fear, hate, envy,
self-loathing,
if-only’s,
shattered shoulds,
fractured woulds,
the lethal stuff
I’ve hauled around
all these years.

Create in me a clean heart,
O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence,
and do not take Your holy spirit from me.*
* Psalm 51:10-11 (NASB)

Poem reprinted from A CLOUD OF WITNESSES.

It Matters

Does it matter if you lose
just so you play fair,
do yourself proud
by not offending,
by courtesy, by nice?
If it doesn't, why bother?
So what, win some, lose some,
go your merry way.
It matters. If you don't want it,
strive for it, work toward it,
play hard until the clock expires...
If less than the best is good enough
why bother to play the game?

Live Today

Tomorrow's life is too late. Live today. ~ Martial (The September 11 entry in For Today, published in 1982)

September 11 was one date of 365
before it became 9-11.
Innocuous days become pivotal
in the nation, the world, the town,
a life in retrospect, in passing through.
What if's, if only's, but for's hang like fog,
How can we live in today when yesterday
haunts the now, when living is standing
against the wind-tunnel gale?
When last words ever were hatefully hurled,
when omissions gape eternally,
then what?
Then grieve. Deny, get mad, bargain with God,
the fates, the wind... Feel the sad, allow the pain
until you're done, then do it again.
Reach today as best you can, then live today.

Don't Laugh

You feel like crying.
The end of the world,
the bottom of the pit.
Betrayed, sideswiped,
rug yanked. You want to scream,
to wail, to protest to the stars.
So why do you hold it in,
pretend you're fine,
hide your needs, your feelings,
your anguish. Why do you pretend?
Don't laugh when you need
to cry.

Get a Life!

The taunt rings out,
mocking normal,
trivial, mundane.
Don't they understand?
We tried the weird, the slick...
lives of decadence, years of lunacy.
Get a life? If their jeers
had hit our triggers,
if they'd yelled in yester-year,
we might have been compelled
to answer, to rebut, refute...
but then, no, not then
but now we have no need to answer
but nod and know
we found recovery, sanity,
meaning...
we found our lives.

Grace

Grace doesn't treat us better than we deserve. It treats us without the slightest reference to what we deserve. Grace ceases to be grace if God withdraws it upon any human failure. If Grace is in any way tied to something you do, then it is no longer a gift but a wage, and that's not grace. ~ Paul Donnan

I'll pay my own way, thank you.
I need no help, can rely on me
and if I trust you I can be crushed,
can suffer humiliation by your excellence,
how you make me look inept, worthless.
Not that I have worth, just that you
need not know that, need not have power
by seeing me as I am inside, hidden,
the filthy part. You offer great gifts,
things I crave, everything I could want
since my wants tend to be about me,
about people, about excellence.
But I can't stand to accept them
for – don't you see? —
accepting them makes me look less
since I could never have earned them.
What? It's offered to everybody,
free, for the taking? If I take it
nobody's deprived of it,
nobody will use this gift you give me
if I don't? It's individual to me
and to every individual?
Well, I might could take that, God.
Are you sure?

A Growing Resentment

He has not mopped that floor all week!
He goes off to his high and mighty office,
draws a pittance compared to what he might
had he taken my advice. He calls it business
but when he makes no money it's a hobby,
a blasted-costly hobby!
Cat hair, dust bunnies —
he can't help but see them.

Sixteen days, and not touched.
He's gone from dawn to dusk.
He could leave me a decent place,
somewhere I feel comfortable.
But I'm so far down on his list...
Rotary, AA, Toastmasters,
volunteer work for who-knows-what...
I don't mind not being first,
but I could make the top five!

Twenty-seven days, a fluffy nest
for rats and varmints.
I sit here all day, stroll through
to the kitchen or bath – the filth!
Can't even watch my shows
for his thoughtlessness.
You'd think he'd have respect
for his own home!

Meaningless?

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun? (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, NIV)

We sweat. We strain.
Our bodies ache, we’re wracked with pain.
Hammerstein understood The Teacher,
knew the spirit of TGIF.
Toil is toil.
Truth at least
for millennia
between two writers.
Bodies ache from carpal tunnel.
Meaningless is meaningless.
Sometimes, though, it’s not.
Did The Teacher think his toil meaningless?
Did Hammerstein?
I don’t.

God, you make meaningful my meaningless life.
You endue tedium with consequence.
Grant me the humility to grant you control and
dominance.

Excerpt from A TIME FOR VERSE

Onlookers

But for every man who drinks others are involved - the wife who trembles in fear of the next debauch; the mother and father who see their son wasting away. ~ ​Alcoholics Anonymous, ​page 104

Those who stand and watch.
Innocent victims or cause and effect,
addiction may seem a lonely state
but each stands surrounded
by a second tier. Chicken or egg,
environment or genetics,
sickness runs rampant in kin.
Symptoms vary from father's booze
to mother's pills, brother's gambling,
sister's bingeing, aunt restricting food...
the home stands a hospital
filled with helpless, powerless folks.

A flaxen aura emanates once recovery
sets down tentative tendrils of root,
grows with serenity when fears fade,
fills the home, the telephone lines,
and proves faith, surrender, love
spread through families as well.

Egg on Face

Mistakes. Dumb, stupid,
wrong. Three times today!
How dumb can I be?
How inept? How flawed...
I made mistakes.
Failed to attach a file,
uploaded a cover
when asked for the book,
corrupted a file
that but for sharp British eyes
would have gone into print,
hundreds of copies,
with gibberish.
I made dumb mistakes.
But I'm not dumb.
I'm now flawed,
I have worth.
I am loved
goofs and all.

Why Worry?

What will you change
pondering what could happen
tomorrow, next week, next year,
when the cows come home?
Fear of the future, of what might be
shows it's fangs in worrisome thoughts,
in borrowing trouble long before the cause.
Tomorrow's not your business,
not under your control,
not going to change no matter how
you fret, you pace, you chatter,
you sulk, you rant and rage about what's not
the concern. You're not in charge,
not responsible. All you have to do
is ask, listen, do the next right thing
and stop worrying.

Imagination Fired!

Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship, and so will you. ~ ​Alcoholics Anonymous, page 52

An odd promise, your imagination fired.
NASA announced the imagination
of a generation was fired by the the space shuttle.
Barak Obama campaigned for president
telling of speaking in a remote town
to a score of people, an elderly woman private eye
raising a chant of "Fired up! Ready to go!"
It feels more like football pep rallies
than a promise of Recovery.
Yet, how well the promise resonates,
how imaginations swell, grow in intensity,
catch fire when we stand, freed from addicts' chains
ready at last to ​live life! Imagine!

A Common Solution

The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element of the powerful cement that binds us.... But that itself is not enough... The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. ~ Charlie P.

Welcome home! The rooms of recovery are home
from the minute we arrive. At long last we are not alone,
others sit across the circle telling our story,
knowing just how our private insanity feels!
We settle in, around a virtual hearth – warm, cozy, home.
Slowly, though, irritability sets in, restlessness for more,
a heart-void wailing for meaning.
Then other words penetrate the fog,
hint of greater treasure, a coin of great worth,
special enough to set all else aside...
There's more here than a common peril —
a remarkable escape! Here's a ladder out,
a hope, a path. These people know the road out!
There is a solution!

Road to Be Taken

I sit here crying out nameless fears,

washing away what-ifs and should-haves

and pain, both fresh and festered. 

Asked if I had a busy week, I hedged,

said most the appointments had cancelled,

not I cancelled them for I plan to spend

hours and hours in hospital waiting rooms,

working to keep from thinking, from the what-ifs,

from the should-haves, from the pain, the fears,

the future.