Ready

February 9

READY

Ready or not here it comes: life on terms of its own.  Bracing for the onslaught of gravity I grip too well the implements of past days.  Fearing the pressure, I lay in my shallow grave, the ground having been scooped out by hand.  Withering from expectation, my blood runs slow and dark, reducing to coagulated futility, losing my life in anticipation of death.  Attempts at being less as means of protection fail.  Less is not a solution; fading does not make life more livable.  It makes me unavailable.  Readiness is my responsibility; it is momentary.  Momentary is sufficient.  Sobriety is nothing more than lining myself up with the needs of this instant.  I need go no further.  Whole solutions, not my department.  Showing up, dressed and washed, ball and bat in hand if possible, but just making it to the lineup is my full time job.  Even if I never swing, it is still better than being buried in the field.

Put a joke in your pocket.

*

Simultaneous Acceptance

Being typical is a difficult thing to live with,

but I am typical.

Being extraordinary is a challenging thing

to live up to, but this is also mine to bear,

you see I am a typical alcoholic after all.

Walking with one foot in each camp is not enough.

I must simultaneously accept both

my common commonality

and my lottery winner uniqueness

If I am to travel hand in hand with my Higher Power.

If I don’t integrate this double reality,

allow it to imprint my thoughts

the way it is tattooed in my DNA

I can not possibly take the biggest step of all.

Drop my judgment of these things

so that humility can dwell within.

You see there is not enough room in the vortex

of my humanness to accommodate the jags of verdict

And the desire for the sublime smoothness of humility.

I can’t chase humility, I have had to face that,

but I can remove the impediments to its residence.

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

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/More-Lines-From-My-Life/dp/1448677203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576956&sr=8-1&keywords=More+Lines+From+My+Life

Reguess

May 2

Reguess

When in my sarcasm I suggested that you ‘guess again’, I realized that you were in fact guessing, guessing about everything, guessing in order to create a process of elimination, a tool on which I now recognize you entirely depend.  Guessing as a way of life is a tragedy.  I’m not saying that trying to know every last thing in the world is an acceptable alternate goal, but to reach an adult age and not even be able to work your way up to a possible hunch is scary, scarier than even my sarcasm, which at this moment seems interminable, but I’m sure you guessed that.

Make a list of your favorite fingers

*

ON COMING

Anticipation of the approaching traffic consumes.

The tiny spec grows and develops into the arriving vehicle

50 miles per and the rapid succession of the coming

And those leaving eats quickly at my heart.

The pain seers me

Why are these who travel from the direction of my destination

Passing me by?

For miles and miles they appear to be greeters

The breeze created by their passing chaps my face

And questions my goals

How can so many abandon my objective?

But flee they do.

My hunger does not diminish

And I press on

Of course if we all went this way, we might tip the globe

Maybe that’s what they fear.