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.
You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault
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