Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 23

MEETING INVENTORY



The manicurist at the meeting sits and does her nails; the discussion goes on around her as she files away. Cell phones go off for the people who can’t put their lives on hold for their sobriety. The knitter knits and the dissenters descend; with the chatting chickens and the grumbling grouse, all these populate the meeting. It has taken the first half of the hour to take everyone else’s inventory. I have the remaining 30 to take my own.


Let your evenings reflect your mornings like the sea reflects the sky.
*


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.

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 crucifixion,
other’s or my own.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 24

CAMPAIGN


Sobriety is the Santa Claus, bringing delightful gifts, which make me smile. Recovery is the Genie, which comes from staying out of bottles. This Jin makes treasure possible but doesn’t bring it to my door. The ads and billboards of illusion built a world of booze but no hope for a real life. I have learned to turn from all the lies of picking up, and live in the possibilities, which open only when I put down the drinking and the thinking. I don’t need to pin up stockings or rub lamps, just take direction and make willingness my campaign.


Store thoughts, plant seeds.
*

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.

[DMW]

Thank you thank you thank you...for your posts LeftWriteFemme. Need to get in and make it a habit to read them everyday. Does me good.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Originally Posted by DMW

Thank you thank you thank you...for your posts LeftWriteFemme. Need to get in and make it a habit to read them everyday. Does me good.

Hey DMW, thanks for taking the time to read my posts, I appreciate it!

Sherrie

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 25


AUTUMN



The falling leaves slap my hand as I ride the road at fifty miles per, my arm dangling
The trees are shedding their masquerade
Exposed they stand stark, stripped
Naked to the soul
The growth of this year's yearning waves on the fringe
I can follow this lead
Remove pretense not clothing
Stand before all who have an interest in seeing me
Unashamed of my wants
And the things I reach for
I can cast off the uniform of evolution
And enjoy a long winter of truth


Do what you do.
*



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.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 26

NATURAL LAW



Gravity is always in effect, but invoke the laws of lift and you can make a stone fly. I have no gills but strap on a tank and rebreather; I can share space with sharks. Given enough willingness and step work I can walk through the world sober though every cell of my body is alcoholic. The laws of nature are fluid. When I flow with them I can keep my goals. Instant gratification is often my stumbling block. Gaining access to my far-flung desires is not impossible but it is also not immediate.


Make little plans with salt and big plans with sugar.
*


Make Use of Brown Soap



When I have death in my pocket
it makes it easy to cross the street without a glance.
A little arsenic in my in my veins
allows me to swallow the rest with no thought beyond want.

Twist the screws tight enough in my brain
and no other pressure seems problematic.
All of the trouble in the world can beat a path to my door
when I carry within me the seeds of destruction.

I have to check myself for stow-away devastation.
Ruin begins in tiny droplets but will wash me down the drain
if not wiped immediately from my skin.

Vigilant acknowledgement of the power of small burdens
protects me from the mind blown ravages of the ensuing cyclone.
Microbes cause mayhem,
so I must watch where I touch and wash before I eat.

[LeftWriteFemme]

August 27

THE DREAMER


“What about the dreamer?”
“What about her?” responds my sponsor. “You ask me about her like I was the one who pushed her off the cliff.”
“Are you saying I pushed her?” I questioned my sponsor.
“Yes, that is just what I am saying. Do you need me to sing it? You wanted the dreamer to fly off to safety and happiness and wanted her to take you with her. In an attempt to grab hold of her ankles and propel her to heaven you threw her from the precipice. Now she is broken and bleeding far from your sight. Your dreamer is damaged and you ask me what about her. Do you want to know what you did and how to remedy it or were you looking to duck responsibly?”
“Quack.”


Run before you fly.
*



Defining the Indefinable

What is Alcoholism?
What is a Hurricane?
What is a Cataclysm?

I know I look for the root cause,
look to predict the outcome,
look to prevention and preservation.

This thing which comes pouring
from the four winds
to land in my yard
and knock on my screen door.

What it shows me today,
the furious winds,
the slanting rain,
may not be how it presents tomorrow,

I must keep in mind it is all the same storm
and must be regarded with the same respect
and treated with the same care and diligence.

Whether it’s the thirst or the thinking,
a jail cell or my mental mouse trap,
alcoholism is an umbrella term for the tsunami,
which came to collect me,
but no definition will convey the devastation it has wrought.