Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 26

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE


Just because the crows fly away when I arrive doesn’t mean they are afraid, but they might be. The obvious answers are usually the correct ones; I must leave room for the unlikely answers, too. Sometimes a spade is a shovel and a gofer is occasionally a retriever. The world is a wonderful and fearful place where possibilities are endless if I am willing to allow the light to strike these sheltered doubts. Any day, anywhere, an alcoholic can stay drunk or get sober.


Practice your game face so you don’t have to play a game.
*

Chock Full of Nuts


I am not a coffee maker.
I come from a long line of non-coffee drinkers
and I don’t drink it myself.

I made the coffee for my home group once
and was asked not to do it again.
This is when I realized my service talents
must lay elsewhere, and they do.

I am a good sponsor for those who want what I have
or at least want to attempt what I am trying to get toward.
I am a good representative.
I can carry the wishes of my group to the district.

I am learning to share my story and carry the message
and hope to do it well.
So, my question to you is
to what service do you most naturally bend?

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 27

RECLAMATION ARTIST


I stand over the refuse can and peer in; I drive slowly past the piles of curbside discards. I have so much trouble accepting there is no reclaiming most of this ever-growing mass. There must be an alternate plan but I can’t see it yet. I surround myself with hopeful stacks and wishful trinkets. I want to make a new world from the old, save past relationships and make them somehow fresh. I don’t want to drown. I fear I can’t think fast enough to keep the wave from breaking over us all. I will maintain an open mind and be grateful my life was retrieved from the dustbin. I’ll steal peeks at what has been put out for lost. I was once lost, too.


Read your favorite book one page a day.

*


When I rise up and when I lay down

In order to be happy with you
I have to learn to be happy without you.
I gasp at the pain of it

I desperately wish that the above statement were not true,
but alas, you are gone in a way that I can never reclaim you
and to hold on to what of you is still tentatively available
I must release my frightened grasp.

A wisp of smoke is not the bonfire of our past,
but it is what remains and I breathe it in as best I can.
Immediately I realize I am holding on again.

I breathe you out, let you go.
I want to run screaming throwing you from my bonds,
yet another of my attempts at control.

So, now it’s time to pray.
Not a prayer to get my way, not a prayer to make you stay,
not a prayer to make you gone, just a prayer to live on my own.

God help me please to live my life,
Please guide me away from strife.
I am lost and cannot find my way,
Father, hold me till the light of day.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 28

ONIONS


“I heard people in meetings sharing about peeling onions. They said they peel layer after layer until it’s all gone! What the hell is that all about?" I demanded in the general direction of my sponsor.
“Zealotry, it’s about zealotry. I peel my onions too. I have many layers of dried up, paper-thin, rhetoric that I use to protect myself. I have to slit this papery husk and eject myself from the illusion to get at the living and vital usefulness underneath.”
“Then what?”
“Then I try to let God decide where is the best place to add my flavor. Stew is good but salad is a treat. I can go anywhere once the waste is stripped away.”
“What about the issues you haven’t worked out yet?" I bait my sponsor.
“Well, those are other onions,” is all she would say.


Allow a child to make you laugh.
*
Halfway Home


Too far to turn back to the origin,
not quite close enough to my destination;
I am halfway home.

I sometimes forget where I have come from,
forget too where I’m bound.
I gently remind myself I’m making progress
no matter what I know.

I am not where I started,
not where I am going,
but I am not without.

There is plenty to do and much to look forward to.
I lift my feet one at a time, left then right.
I try to keep the steps equally spaced,
to prevent past curves and circles.

Lost is not as bad as it sounds
though I do dream of clarity,
stone -free shoes
and a home cooked meal when I arrive.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 29

HEAT EXCHANGE



I stand in the shower and let the water run. The water carries away my temperature in exchange for its own. I leave the enclosure restored. Mentally, a meeting does this for me. I change hot topics for more moderate positions, cold indifference for warm regard. Stepping into a group of my fellows carts off my excess ego and flushes my pride. Isolation is taken and camaraderie left in its place. I am always changed by standing amid the rush of sober minds and faithful service. Balance comes from proximity and willingness. Everything is reduced to letting myself get wet.


Measure your growth on a doorpost.

*
Exercising Futility


Asking the confused for explanation
is like asking a blind man the color of the sea.
It isn’t that he couldn’t tell you,
but how could you be sure?

To exercise futility is more than just a game
or the words to a song
your mother sings when lost or far away.

To take the fish out of water
and train it on a bike is meaner than I need to be,
but isn’t it my right?

Just to do things because they can be done
or try them because they can’t
is more the worse for everyday a tragedy in pants.

Puzzle out the little things and practice when you can,
for putting on the frazzled mind
is cruel to the poor sweet-hearted sot.

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 30

SMOG


When I burn out, the smoke affects everyone in the surrounding area. I forget to keep my wick trimmed and lamp full; I empty out and my light grows dim. I am responsible for maintenance and upkeep. If I don’t protect my own radiance I will lose it and the darkness will be felt throughout the neighborhood. I can’t risk the death of illumination or incur smoldering haze. Fortification of my sobriety is a simple task if I make proper use of resources. When I turn energy to obligation I am distracted and separated from my source, then the source I am to others is extinguished. I can only light the darkness where I am; I can’t illuminate someone else’s path. Nor should I pollute the way with smoke and vapor due to a lapse in my spiritual condition.


Place the period then write to it.
*





From Mind to Pen to Paper

What a relief to have exteriorized all the swirl of thought,
which normally swarms my mind,
waiting to take the stage and run through their numbers.

Then like deciphering a code
I was able to cross out all the irrelevant and redundant information,
leaving me with a clear answer.

Once there standing on its own;
it was obvious and easily explained
how two plus three is five.

I just love anything that can be explained all on one hand
and there it was tidy and neatly fitted in the nest of my palm,
easy to grasp hold of with my fingers or my mind.

[LeftWriteFemme]

July 1

THE POODLE


Those pointed toes, slender legs carry her across my outstretched mid. What a blessing to be sober long enough to have never done any unseemly or frightful thing which might have caused apprehension in this firefly of a dog. I read until she lays her neck over my mouth for her kisses and ear rubs. She is the center of the universe and I needn’t compete. I am content to serve as resting place and nursemaid. I no longer look to be everyone’s pet. I can pamper and indulge this little one. She has the whole stage to herself. I can be her faithful audience having given up my farce.


Carry a picture of you in your wallet.
*


Trouble with Geometry

You are not allowed to get into trouble on purpose,
that’s the rule and if you do
you will get no sympathy that’s the corollary.
Life is too hard to go looking for trouble.

Running toward danger,
whining about self-inflicted pain.
The unspoken law of risk taking
is that failure is dealt with in silence.

Writhing on the ground
after sticking your head in a hornet’s nest,
leaves me and the world I know
to be speechless in your presence.

I know you desire consolation from me.
All I know to say is that your actions
are incongruent with your life.

[LeftWriteFemme]

July 2

CURRENCY OF FEAR


Fear pays the way for my disease to enter. Once inside fear seats itself front and center. Fear is the currency that allows entry to the far reaches. The coinage is ancient and steeped in tradition. There is no time or place that hasn’t been moneyed with fear and its derivatives. I can’t hide from it so my job must be to educate fear. Fear is real and has a place as protector and warning. But fear expands with ignorance and devalues the purpose of caution. Fear cannot buy safety, though I can use it to pay the toll across the bridge to balance.


Speckle your tongue with new words.
*

Origins


At the root of it all is darkness.
The place from which I grow,
the structure that holds me fiercely upright,
is pressed on all sides by dirt.

When I get right down to it the ethereal leaves
and twigs, even the branches, do not exist,
except for my foundation in the composted death
and recycled life; the ground.

For is it God who rains down from the heavens
light and water or is God truly living
at the center of the earth,
warming my toes and securing me to what is real.