Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 19



Endlessly Moving Maps


I try to survive by memorizing the chaos. I do well up to five layers deep and then lose it, as the details become too great. I am staking my life on my ability to track the patterns in a storm while at the same time treading water. I think this skill kept life and breathe in me for many years, but now I fear I’ll drown in this roiling mass. I must touch down my tender toes and learn to walk this twisting path and keep a pace with this spinning world. Everything moves and I am overwhelmed. I have forgotten my flesh and blood nature; have mistaken myself for a stone, one which dare not roll, one which has no part in this endlessly moving map.








Be honest with your toes

*



SATISFACTION

Satisfaction is like a marble in my pocket.
Formed when correctness was still red hot
And my sponsor rolled my mind until I was whole.

I sigh and square my shoulders
I know I am up to any task.
I am skilled with my tools and know well the talents
Of my intimates and helpmates.

I am not invincible but I am capable.
I value who and what I am today.
I sleep the sleep of a person
Not a hostage or captor, I am me.

I have a marble in my pocket
And it reminds me of the world.
I have a world within me
Knowing how to live with that
Is a great satisfaction.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 20



Dewy, Cheatum & Howe


I must radically sever the close connection I have with self-seeking, self-pity and dishonesty. What will I use to pay the retainer for the representation I will need to pursue this divorce? Willingness is the earnest money, which will start the ball rolling, hard work pitches in its share and faith pays the note each day I apply it. All this and more is what it takes to divide the endless stream of my compulsive thought into a survivable days worth of life. I have the prospect of being happy as a divorcee or I could be a miserable widow if I stay wed to my disease.





Try not to be the exception to everything

*

PROMISE BROKEN

If promise shatters without anyone touching it,
If it pops like a floating soap bubble that lost cohesion,
What do I do--name names--I can’t even take fingerprints.

Sometimes dreams just end--no fault or blame is attached.
The ice breaks under its own weight
And nothing can be done.

I am more than just holding on.
I am alive even if all the promises melt away.
I can accept the unexpected and unasked for.

I know this doesn’t affect my worth.
My value is intact regardless of disappointment or discontent.
I have learned that anticipation is mere amusement.
Promises are pleasantries
.
I am made of stronger stuff.
I am not broken by words, ideas or hope.
Promise can be broken
But it doesn’t break me.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 21



Hang on or Dance


Because I felt ‘outcomes’ slipping through my fingertips I dug in with my nails, I schemed, plotted, worried, whined. Lack of power was my problem I thought, but what it came down to was, failure to acknowledge… accept… failure to surrender to the reality of powerlessness. The only thing I learned from resistance was an intimate knowledge of futility. When I embraced truth… the facts…when I live with the gravity of masses not fight against it; I began to enjoy the weather, knowing I did not pull the clouds or push the storm. I’m back in the dance of people moving about me, all keeping with the time, it is not mine to keep.




Befriend science

*

CHANNELING

It’s a full feeling to be a channel.
Only an empty feeling when it’s blocked
At the base of my spine
And God can’t go to my head.

The river flows through me and my banks will hold
Excuses dam me up
And leave a dry and lifeless basin
With tributaries taxed for uselessness.

Staying in the groove conveys my Higher Powers will
Without need of my furrowed brow.
A hose with no water running
Is a place for spiders to spin.

If I shut off the service I am a breeding ground
For creeping sadness and shocking misery
Compliance allow me the view
Of flowing strength and rushing joy
The greatest of which is living with intent.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 22

Up to Date

The future is a prison I escape by staying in today. The tiny windows which open to strange foreknowledge have barbs rather than bars and inflict painful wounds when I attempt too close examination. My business is here and now; the currency like manna, good only for the duration of the day and nothing further. Pretty dreams and colossal disaster float as baubles on the horizon but I need to take down my focus from such far off vistas; adjusting the optics for a clear view of where I am standing. Circumscription is what the destiny becomes when I try to live in it too soon. Novelty is what it is to be living in the very moment I am currently breathing in.

Find ways to embrace the random nature of life

*

ORIGAMI

I fold my reality like origami

Everyday a shape to suit my whim.

A dog when I feel like begging.

A horse when I want to trot away.

A pot to brew up some potion.

A penguin when I feel cold

And I stand on my egg all day.

I can bend and flex, change my image

But in the end I am truly flat and lifeless

A construct of imagination but soulless and boring.

Reality cannot be my creation,

Made in the accordion of my mind.

Truth and breath come like wind

And I need to let them change direction

And change me too.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 23




Carrion


The trouble with not burying my dead issues is that in very short order they begin to smell and not, too long after that they start to attract vultures. Alternately when I am able to drain all the juice out of these botherations and they become freeze-dried decorations like Roy Rodger’s Trigger, I find that I can still climb aboard but they just don’t take me anywhere. I have found, just for me that I prefer visiting the grave of a past problem far better than having to live with its corpse, but then I am funny like that. I have never been one for hanging on to the crucifixion, of other’s or my own.







Don’t wait for the bell of courage to sound, go ring it yourself


*

THE CALL

Within the sound of your voice
I sing.
In the beat of your heart
I heal.

I feel in your touch
And dance when your toe starts to tap.
I see myself in your beauty
And warm inside your embrace.

Your thoughts are my inspiration.
Your lungs breathe me in and blow me out.
I soar in your flight
And dream in your waking.

I ring in your ears
Fall with your tears.
I’m lost in you
And found in you.

I travel and lounge in you
I share all your rantings and hide in your secrets
You hear and caress me, my darling
You know who I am.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 24



Just Say NO to Bushel Baskets


Spending my life under a bushel basket kept me from realizing who I am. I thought because of the close quarters I knew myself better than those free to explore the world, yet, alas, no. I am unaware of the world outside and inside the bin; this woven covering served to sever all true communications. Even in places where my candle burned through, it couldn’t allow sufficient light, in or out, for as much as an SOS or a night light. Here I am, not knowing my abilities… my possibilities…. or my worth and there is the world, standing a startled stranger from me, for I only know it as the circle around my feet and nothing more.






Manipulate your mind until it is supple and flexible


*

HARD TIMES

Sometimes I pack the earth down so hard
that weeds can’t even grow up through.
I try to make nature inert.
I try to kill my alcoholism.

I confine my disease to this tiny path of compacted dirt
and wear blinders as to ward off distractions.
I forget there is a garden to be grown
in the fertile ground of my recovering mind.

Losing the compulsion to drink is a gift.
Stopping my mind from thinking is soul murder.
I can sink my toes in the good brown soil
and look to the lilies and Queen Ann’s Lace for inspiration
.
I can stop giving myself such a hard time.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 25




Echidna’s Child



The difference between perplexed paranoia and procrastination is sometimes a subtle distinction. The confusion which swirls, confounding me along my trudge, gets the name of procrastinator. I am not at all sure I should continue to call it by that name. I believe that quite possibly I am an internal chimera, a blend of creatures, both mythic and fantastic, striving to live as one functioning specter, in a world too hard for a disparate visage as myself. When I am most myself, when the goal is pure and true, I work with a will. When I am making deadly compromise and risking my soul for social ease or the approval of the keepers, my dragon heart rebels and I am struggling against the fire in my stomach and fear screaming in my head. I don’t know how to eliminate the conflict, but for now I will attempt to stop calling myself names.




Beware of hopelessness it has a big imagination
*

WATERLINE

The interface of water and land is compelling.
Soothing but dramatic I’m drawn to this transition.
I stand and watch the lap, lap, lapping of the liquid to the land.

The gift of one place to another calls me.
Change and transition exhilarate my senses.
Whether it is rock or sand, river or sea,
I feel the pull to watch life in response.

Boundaries are beautiful.
Borders allow safety and recreation not just risk.
When I embrace this in life I embrace it in me.