Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 11

LONELINESS EATS MY LUNCH

There are days loneliness eats my lunch and I can’t fight back. How can I stand it? How can it still be this bad? I pull out the old chestnuts: If I’m not happy with what I have, how could I be happier with more? And, Even tickets on the fifty yard line don’t interest me; I came to play! I roll them around. I think of the other slogans, the tidbits, the smiles and hugs. Still, there are days my lunch is gulped down and I sit with my plate empty. Pickle juice, coleslaw drool is small comfort. Actually, it’s a jeer. I stare at my empty plate. I turn it and twist it. I stick out my tongue at it.
“You're good company,” says my sponsor.
Then why am I alone? If I’m so good, if my company is worthwhile, why do I sit here hungry and desperate?
“Are you sure you are?”
It sure feels that way.
“Well it might be true.”
And it might not. I get it. I am unhooked from myself; I’m ignoring the multitude at my elbow, looking for someone in my lap. I’m holding out for old terms from a new contract. I am loved by people who aren’t trying to consume me and I am letting my expectations dine for free.



Imagine who the wind visited before you and who it is on its way to visit now.
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Pepo


My father used to destroy a perfectly good watermelon
by cutting a triangle in the top
and pouring a bottle of vodka into it.

I used to destroy my perfectly good melon the same way.
Emulating bad ideas in new ways
was a onetime pastime of mine.

Giving it up was harder than I had expected.
Flawed thinking blends so freely with my mental landscape
I have trouble distinguishing it.

Condemning the action and not the man
is not usually my preferred method.
I would rather condemn the man.

But this leaves me with the actions in place
and him long gone and though I prefer him gone
I will recreate him within myself
if I don’t flush his actions as well.

I have a good pumpkin on my shoulders
but it is my job to keep it intact.




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