Friends of Bill W.

[Tommi]

Good morning world.. I woke to the sound of rain pelting against my window.. Recalling that in a nother time and place , that would have been an excuse to play hooky from work, and meet the Boys...

So, off to work and just for today, I will dance ...in it..

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 10


Recognition

All I have are these two hands; I can not lift the world

All I have are these two legs; I can not flee the hoards

All I have is this one heart though need and want prevail

All that’s left is this one mind to try to tell this tale.

Everything in this bright orb is there for me to see

Everything laid out before me all that I can be

Everything that I perceive as wrong and know it in my heart

Everything I think to touch and change believing it’s my art

Once I take the giant reins acceptance escapes the scene

Once the fates are in my grasp chaos is the theme

Once the sight of my right place is lost from in my mind

Once I try to fill the great big shoes is the day that I go blind.



Prune expectation with open-mindedness




*

DON'T BE A FRAUD

Fake it till you make it is like saying,
Keep drinking till you get sober, complains my sponsor.
But what about the things I can't do yet?
You work on them, that's all, you work.

You adjust your attitude.
Practice the steps.
Carry your behind to meetings,
And talk to me and others in your network.

Yeah, that sounds like a breeze.
It's easier than staying sober while lying.
In this program we try to stay honest
And in the moment.

Pretending to feel differently than you do
Defeats your ability to be present
And makes it hard for people to trust you.
But it's so awkward, I grumble.

Which is why we of the alcoholic persuasion,
Try to find short cuts but don't get sucked into them.
Tell the truth and do the hard work of sobriety and
Stay away from people who try to sell you a Softer Way.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 11


Rebellion Dogs

“Rebellion dogs our every step at first” AA’s 12 and 12

They won’t come to heal, won’t sit, won’t stay, these dogs circle waiting for signs of weakness or vulnerable skin, but there they are; they have been found out. The ones that worry me more are those that took show and place, the dogs that stand in the shadows and lurk in the wing. What are their names I wonder? Their distinctive smell? Must I identify these writhing mutts or simply call animal control? Though this never worked with rebellion dogs these lesser pups surely would run from would be dog catchers and leave me to my dreams. Alas, I name them and show them to my friends; we like they run in packs and are served well by honest disclosure.




Prune expectation with open-mindedness





*

THINGS THAT ARE THICKER THAN WATER

Pudding, mud, ice cream, cement, sauce, paint,
sap, drool, gravy, wood.
What is that?
A list of things that are thicker than water.

There are so many,
Why do people get so hung up on blood?
Survival, comfort, or maybe tradition?
There must be many reasons.

Why we strong-arm one another into relations
with family.
Families we drank with
Or families we drank to get away from,
But it's not the family is it, it's us.

We have to learn to do what we need to do.
We can't force ourselves into relationships
with anyone for any reason
Other then it is what is best for us.

Shoulds and aughts have no place in the family situation
So can I walk away from them all?
You can't do anything in the sweep of the wand,
In the same vein don't obligate yourself to people
due to viscosity.

That sounds like a promising start.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 12

Whittle it Down


A famous sculptor mentioned that he doesn’t so much create the objects as remove the stone which doesn’t belong. I have had the same experience with willingness. Encased in the bedrock of my will willingness had no opportunity to open doors. Flaking away the extraneous the key shape appears, rugged, blockish, rudimental. As the tears stream down my face and wrong thinking flies from my brain the key is more finely formed. As I wheedle at misconception and haul bodily wrong action the teeth of this thing show sharp in this day’s sun. Many doors stand ajar, at first those with basic tumblers, but now even those with encrypted defense are no match for the willingness, which I wield with rapier wit. The obvious blocks to progress open to me as well as the subtle doors to untold destination, I am let out of danger, released into possibility.





Trace implication



*

NIGHT FLIGHT

The small log shape with wings
Passed the windshield of my moving car
Without collision.
Meticulous calculation and correction
In a night sky.

Silent passage
Swift and meaningful
The owl lives as it knows how.

I was not born to the night.
Darkness not my given realm.
I have inverted my senses and compensated
For the moonlight.

I pull my way through the air
And hunt for my survival
In a world of shadows.
The morsels caught on the wing.

Snatches of conversations
And lines from books sustain me.
Giving me strength to live
In spite of the nocturnal bondage.

I have made peace with the night.
I am changed by my living
And my living endures.

The grace required to abide here
Is bestowed on me nightly.
I wear it though it is not the prize I sought.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 13

Progressive Fourth


All I can do is stand on the grass and count the shutters, the windows, the doors. At first I cannot approach to inspect any closer than that. Time passes and the other steps work me. I peer through the windows the next time and count the stuffs I can glimpse through the glass. I possess no periscopic vision, but what is in plain sight I reckon. Subsequently I wished to exteriorize and draw the inventory of the house out onto the lawn and tally there wishing to avoid that interior life, the poisoned vixen who haunted there. Time passed and she recovered as did I, into the house I went. I am now able not only to number my possessions; I can assess the flow and function, work patterns, interplay, reliability. I have now appraised not just the what, but the how of my life and progress into tomorrow.


Give cooperation a hand




*

TRAVELING PICTURES

I parked next to a beaten little import.
The well of the passengers side filled
With empty sports drink bottles and soda cans
The dash board was a shrine.

Three taped photographs.
One of a young man and young woman.
One of the young woman and an older woman.
One of the young woman and an enormous marble statue.

There were small carved objects
Affixed to the dash.
Jade and soapstone figures,
Beads and a feather.

The sanctuary in my head is decked out
In a similar manner.
Postcard pictures line my mind.
People I love, trips I took, pets long gone.

The road signs of my journey
Stand as exhibits of a tour of duty
Not always to my liking
But nothing I would trade.

I know clearly where I have been
And study the map to prepare
For the future escapades and loved ones.

Trinkets strung on my life line
Give texture, flavor and flash
To my pilgrimage.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 14

ONE


One skin
One mind
One spirit
One day

If I live in more than my own skin, I am a body snatcher and ghoul. If I live in a duality of thought I am ejected, ostensively out of my mind. If I redouble my spirit the increase takes a dark cold turn and I am lost. If I try to live two days at a time the sand shifts in the glass and I am worse off in that hour than Dorothy.
This skin is all I can be in, as many times as I walk in someone else’s shoes it’s the skin I’m in. This mind is my only bequest, treasure enough to earn my keep. Free as this spirit is it is still tied at the heel and like my shadow it remains. And today is the only day where the magic works, witches melt and clicking my heels gets my attention even if it doesn’t always take me home.






Create competition-free zones in your life


*

COMING TO THE TABLE

For many years, decades even,
I stacked the table against myself and others.
I piles the sacred next to the trifles.
I deposited item after item and built towers to confusion.
After years of sobriety I sorted the piles in earnest.

I made a place for myself at the table.
It's amazing what I can accomplish with a seat and a surface.
Over months, tediously separating, the needed from the useless,
I made a place for others at the table.

There is a whole world of life I missed
While trying to keep myself safe from unrealistic expectations.
Expectations of who I am and what I can do,
What I should do and who I should do it for.

Having strong boundaries and a clean table is like a homecoming.
I am coming home to me.
The good games and happy meals had at this table
Are unexpected and surely welcome.

The wall I built held good times at bay.
Because I could not keep the flood of trash
From spilling in from every direction
I had to learn to hold my head up before I could look around.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 15

Black and Blue Prints



Building hell from plans I found in the attic; furnishing it with what was left in the basement didn’t make a life but it did keep me occupied. Activity insulates me from living; camouflaging the windswept landscape I claw across turning my face from the oasis believing I have perfected a mirage. I have battered my hope and tied her in the corner the corner which I built from the blue prints I used to turn my life black


Turn up in the best places, turn up when needed, turn up the corners of your mouth

*

THE DEALS I'VE MADE

Because they are deals and not resentments or secrets
These circular schemes did not come out in my fourth step.
They didn't come out in the wash.
They come out whenever they are broken.

If the deal is-Don't eat pickled herring
And you won't remember X
The deal will be broken when pickled herring
Is served to me at some social gathering.

As I get healthier, the breaks connect evermore deeply.
What in early sobriety would have given me unexplained discomfort
Now gives me full-blown flashbacks
And I watch the deal unravel.

I wasn't supposed to eat this
Because this was on my plate-------When
But now that it's on the plate here----Now
I have to face this ugly roiling mess.

The deals saved my life
But unless they are handled with care and honesty
They can cost me the life I have now.

I must choose a safe person and place
To share these broken shards with.
Living alone with this will not work
And making it public fodder is a setup as well.

In every one of these deals
There is a back door to a drink
And therefore WE have to go out the front door together.