Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 4



FREQUENTLY


When my daydream gets so threadbare I no longer use it, I must turn to other sources. When I cannot conjure on my own and elucidation makes me cross eyed, I must turn to HP. I have puttered and prolonged the way to naming this legendary and fabulous enigma. I drew out even longer any desire for close association with the same. I have milled with the millstone and surfed in the whirlpool, dragged my feet and thrown a fit, but this only stalled the inevitable result. Naming and interaction is the need and now is the time. I have a Higher Power and I choose to call it Frequently.



Dreams grow wings if you let them.
*



Eggshells and Bethlehem

A stable is a place to keep a horse
and in fairytales a place to birth a baby,
but stable is the story I told myself about you.

Solid, a model of strength
and here you are a tripod,
upright only if the pressure is evenly applied.

I blame myself for lopsided need
and try to find a way to keep this coupling standing.
Stripped down to minor contact
I wonder if you actually remember me
and then I wonder if I remember myself.

This is what is at stake, this is the trophy I lose
when I fall for you and you fall down.
Where is the girl I worked so hard to create?

Broken eggshells litter the nest
and I look for the chick I used to be.
I fear losing you,
I cry at the thought of losing us,
I die at the loss of me.



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[LeftWriteFemme]

June 5

DOLL

“Why is your face all red?” asked my sponsor.
“I didn’t get my way,” I responded.
“And this crimson appearance is the result?”
“You see that it is. I was very careful about what I wanted and worked hard to be reasonable.”
“And Baby, you were. You did nothing wrong. Your ego was in check and you kept your expectations in proportion.” said my sponsor.
“Then why didn’t it work out my way?”
“I only have a sad and simple answer for you. The result had nothing to do with you, your wants, expectations or desires. The whole experience boils down to only one thing: It was not that type of party, Doll.”
“Oh.”



Promise yourself tears like rain and smiles like sunshine.

*




Discussions with my Disease


“You’re not the girl I used to know.”
“Not the girl you used to love is what you mean?”

“You’re different is all I mean to say.”
“The rest you leave there to rot, unsaid?”

“Something has happened to you.”
“Is it something that you do not like?”

“I don’t know who you are anymore.”
“Or is it that you never knew?”

“One false move could break us up.”
“All your moves are false
why will one more cause such change?”



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[LeftWriteFemme]

June 8



THREE ROOSTERS


The three roosters come to the meeting to hear themselves crow. The membership purely spectators in the longest, lowest, loudest sobriety competition. Those of us in the fray are like picked-on-puppies who learn slowly not to put our heads up to spare our eyes and hearts. The same noise comes repeatedly. Suspicion is never aroused; the heads nod at all the right places, orchestrated for ego and nothing else. The meeting is closed with a momentary prayer for the still suffering in and out of the room. I pray that will be enough.


Tour your past but leave at closing time.

*

Abraxas



I was waiting for a magic person
and then you appeared.
I was dazzled;
I was under your spell.

In an attempt to prove myself
your natural assistant I sawed me in two.
Then I stepped into the vanishing cabinet
and promptly disappeared.

I was not wrong to see the miraculous in you,
but I never looked from your visage once you arrived.
The world around me melted at your entrance
and I flowed down the drain along with it.

I somehow expected a response from you,
but why respond to an empty room?
So, I will plug back into myself and power up.

Power draws power
and I will see if I can draw you once again.


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[LeftWriteFemme]

June 10



DANCE OF DEATH


Honeyed words pour from painted lips; shades of doubt color my mind. Stained glass eyes look to blank walls and picture the gallery of imagination, attempting to sell it for hard currency. Sirens sing from the throats of mute men; the screams which rise in me fall on deaf ears. Paradox feeds controversy but it needn’t. Evolution from a cesspool is repugnant though progress is steadily made. Inertia is violent if that is from whence it came. Afterbirth is always bloody and humans not always nice. I must live and heal as others climb up and slide down. I must keep the beat and forget the dance of death.


Float your expectations and check for daggers underneath.

*

Dido
Either I can have a bad relationship that I never wanted
or no relationship and the painful isolation of having been lied to,
deceived by someone who, in theory, should have been trustworthy.
You are off to war and I am agape
not having realized until too late that you are a soldier.
The fact is that one of these things will occur;
you will be killed by a machine which cares nothing for you
and sees you as its enemy or destroyed by the organization
that sees you as its own.
Or you will throw yourself on your sword
and keep from bothering anyone else with this task.
There is no scenario where you are the One you promised me you’d be.
No homecoming, no welcoming arms to hold me.
I stand on the sidewalk,
a garbage pail of cold water poured over my shock and dismay.
To my grief you say that you have heard it all before,
so why did you set me up to say it all again?
I am heart stricken and cut in a place to obvious to hide
and too hidden to speak of.
You have no time to talk, no aid to give, no love to spare.
I thought I was yours, but see that I have been swept from your life
by the flood of a large gauge hose and water of questionable origin.
Everything is wet but nothing is clean.
This is an unholy act and I am defeated and living in Carthage

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