Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 23

Frankie



“Why do I expect new leaves to grow on dead sticks?” I pleaded to my sponsor.
“Is that a ‘why do fools fall in love’, question?” she retorted.
“Oh, I suppose it is. I was doing so well having a ‘listen only’ relationship with someone then she asked why I don’t tell her my opinion and I like a ‘fool’ I told her. The ensuing pile of rationalizing and justifying she gave stank up my whole day.”
“I bet your steady stream of self reproach didn’t help either,” my sponsor added.
“But, I know better!” I cried. “I mean this is why I stopped my speaking role with this girl. I know she is a reactor NOT a listener. How could I fall apart at her first recognition that I am wordless in the face of her diatribes?”
“You were hopeful. Is that such a crime? You think better of people than they really are. I think that helps you stay willing to help them,” she soothed.
“Yes, but this snapped my willingness to work with her in half. How do I put it back together?”
“Maybe you needed to learn that it’s okay to leave the dead sticks behind.”


Why do turnips look like tops and turnip tops look like greens?


*

COMPOST

Looking at the bins
The stages of decomposition
Remind me of my disease
The stinking garbage I came in with.

I have learned to work my program
The same way I learned to tend my pile
Personal experience, advice, watching
And smelling, the mistakes of myself and others.

I learned covering thoroughly with meetings
And steps works like leaves and hay
To eliminate the immediate stench.
Circulation is important to prevent me from becoming stale.

In the end, the secret is turning it over.
If I don't turn it over I become putrid.
I rot and ferment instead of decomposing,
Breaking down in a way which restores me to usefulness.

When I work the process
My higher Power turns me into a medium of growth.
A renewed source of life and depth.
I become rich in all things that matter.

I am sought after by all the people involved
In planting seeds of hope.
My sponsor says, “It’s a sign of humility
That I aspire to be like dirt."

Encouraging sprouts
From the remnants
Of my past.
She might be right

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 24



The Max Factor



I apply foundation and rouge to make up the difference between reality and expectation. My composition is unexamined by onlookers; appearance is the subliminal standard bearer. My brave face is plaster cast as an estimation and a singularity. Powder gives and takes power; builds a glass ceiling then a glass floor. What I owe my mind is more than what I allow its representation to be. I am made up to a spot on the wall from which I can not move, all because I wanted to put my best face forward.

Cuddle up to curiosity

*

LIFE AS AN ELM



I stand tall
My bark sloughing elongated rectangles
Great bunions of wood protruding
Giant bubbles of tight grain grown in reactionary curls.

These tumors born of abuse and endured in maturation
Are harvested in recovery
The burden of them severed from me
By the sharp teeth of truth.

Sectioning these masses
For purposes of inventory
Allows the twisted and deformed wood
To become dry and constructive.


I inlay the contorted sheets of history
Into the panels of the doors AA built for me.
The doors built to exit hell
Which gave me access to the world beyond.

I stand in the woods
Reaching the sky
Sinking deeply in the underlying spring
Surrounded by the joys of reality.

Things unseen in my pain
Consumed
Blister covered life of addiction
Life was a forest of one.

The wind hit me
The snow fell on me
The drought
Affected only me.

Today, lightened by the loss
Of my inappropriate growth
I grow together with my sponsor,
My group and the We.

I can accept shade and shelter
Also offer it.
The bugs and parasites meet
With the resistance of communal health.


My disease
Has no harbor,
Not in my bark,
Not in my heart.

Today
My program
Strips me of my disabilities
And makes me strong in camaraderie

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 25



Responding to Response

Thankfully I’m not in charge of what is so freely given in this program. I want it to be available, but I want gratitude to be the universal response. At first I thought I couldn’t understand how anyone could hold this gift in their hands and not feel grateful, truth is I know exactly how that’s done and I don’t want to look at that ugly thing. “Cunning, Baffling, Powerful” But they left out how repulsive it is, maybe they didn’t want to see it either, or thought it was self-explanatory.
No matter which, I’m glad I am not the arbiter of the flowing fount that is recovery, I might have been tempted to cap and meter it, killing all the beauty and wild randomness that makes it real and true. I despair that others don’t recover as I recover and yet I am relieved that I didn’t have to drink as they drank.
I have to see those around me well enough to stay out of their traps or follow their leads, whichever is appropriate, but I don’t have to adjudicate their reply.

Pick up sticks and put downs stones

*

THE BUTTON BOX

I go to my button box
To sort out my life.
I lay out the matching sets
The various sizes, shapes and colors.

Coat buttons are commanding
But unsuitable for delicate places.
The tiny pearl buttons with shanks pull my attention
But work well only on silks.

The metal, shell and horn buttons
Come from such far off places
And all end up crossing my table
As I try to see clearly how to stick with the winners.

I know the people represented in this box.
The strong, the loud, the beautiful.
I know the weak and the unique,
The ones of special circumstances and occasions.

I come to the realization the simple ones,
The buttons sewn on the inside,
The ones who silently give strength
And support to the large and the small alike.

The ones which come in every shade and size,
Who match their ability
To service they render others,
These are my favorites.

They make secure all the things I love and trust
Flat and unobtrusive these buttons
Hold fast the fabric of my life.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 26


A Living Love




What I love about the program is that it is a living thing, like me.
It is not perfect, it is growing and changing, adapting and correcting for each experience and need. AA is a life into life process and saves me because life begets life, no matter what I was told. The answer to life is living and I get to see that being done by everyone from newcomer to old-timer each at his or her personal ability. I am allowed to dangle my feet, wade, tread-water and swim, all under the watchful eye of loving support and critical pretender. Difficulty is not removed nor is the way made smooth, but I am no longer without a thread to hold. I love the web I help weave myself into and feel protected from the spider of my addiction because together we are living proof.


Bear Grace


*

DEEP IN THE SEA

Under the mirror
There is life
Under what I reflect to the world
I am a world apart.


I smile sweetly, political in my response
To confrontation and conflict
Deep, deep in the sea, is a current of sadness
I can't always shake.

Pain is the past
But it's there like a moray
Lurking to strike aimlessly, pointlessly
At the passersby.

The ripping teeth
And the cold stare
My terror
No way to escape it.

I focus on the topside
The reflective part of me.
I keep as clean
And free as can be.

I stick to my business
List my goals and make plans
The water runs cold
Then hot beneath.

I carry the steps to this underwater grave
Trying to inflate the rubber skin of god
But No
There is no life in the god of my understanding

Or maybe there is no life.
For the character the drowned balloon represents
The sea is bigger than me.
The life stronger and more abundant.

The sky it reflects as vast as liquid
I swim
There is a Power
And it doesn't need that comic book face.

Safety is not the requirement
That can be granted.
Lack of safety does not end my life
It does not end God