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.