Crazy Time

December 19

Crazy Time

Picking the right time to be crazy seems to be the key to getting away with it.  Wanting to get away with it slants the field a tad.  What crazy is changes from place to place, which puts all the more emphasis on the timing.  The surrounding company and barometric pressure play parts and put on airs.  Lighting, lighting must also be involved, I assure you I don’t know how and can’t calculate the Ohms, but I flip the switches in case it helps.  I have mapped for you a fair amount more than I know.  I wish you well on your attempt, for crazy is a kindred club, I would hate for you to feel inept.

Admire your friends

*

THE FIRST FATHER

The rest of what I have to say
I will slip under your gravestone.
If I have time after I buy the red dress.

To say I hate you is an overstatement.
I only detest what I know of you
The rest I leave to other people
Who might have the misfortune to cross your path.

Your unavailability can protect you
From anything I could ever do to you.
Your hurt and arrogance is far worse punishment.
If I thought you were worth the energy of an attempt.

Having to be you every day must make it hard
To leave the bed in the morning.
I know I couldn’t do it if I had to
Drag your baggage around all day.

The sad part is I’m not sure you know it’s baggage.
You might think it’s armor
But your misnaming of everything
Is just another of the things I never miss about you.

Which is why although I pray every day
For your wellbeing for the sake of mine
If I never see you again
It might just be long enough.

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

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sober-The-Way-Sane/dp/144141231X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374072329&sr=8-3&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/Lines-My-Life-Sherrie-Theriault/dp/1448652820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374072576&sr=1-1&keywords=Lines+from+my+life%2C+Sherrie+theriault

Jet Lagging

November 24

Jet Lagging

Baby’s feet kick in the isle and we are all cocooned in our seats.  The movies play and earphones dangle in our ears. We are jetting across the country in our own little worlds.  Landing can not happen soon enough for me, not that I want to foreshorten the flight.  I just know I have a stack of lives waiting for me and I would like to get back to living them.  I have been a week away, a vacation for sure and true but I have my keep to earn, my obligations are many.  I hope to have done myself proud when I am through, but until then there is much to do.

Zip up to protect yourself from exposure

*

ORIGINS

Pain filled interactions with people
Better suited to be left alone
Changed me in the way of acceptance.

Retched relationships with people
Made it difficult for me to have a loving
Relationship with the world.

I had imprinted as a fledgling
On sarcasm and ridicule.
Bitter milk starved my expectations
Of kind response.

I could not greet the world eagerly.
Having never embraced the world
I failed to hang on as it turned
I slid on my face and hands.

Mud covered I try to keep an open mind
And attempt a connection
With this spinning orb.

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

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sober-The-Way-Sane/dp/144141231X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374072329&sr=8-3&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/Lines-My-Life-Sherrie-Theriault/dp/1448652820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374072576&sr=1-1&keywords=Lines+from+my+life%2C+Sherrie+theriault

Entrenched

November 1

Entrenched

I have dug myself a trench and invited my friends and family.  Truth is, I drug many and tricked others and there they are in the trench I have so recently climbed out of.  It is a nasty place and I feel horribly responsible, but here is the sacred truth; I can’t climb down there again, not even on a rescue mission.  I am obligated to help them, this is for sure, but the fact still remains that it is not safe to get into the water with a drowning person, even if I am the one who caused the drowning.  If I am to be of any help at all I must get my footing and keep it safely on the bank and only then might I be able to throw down a rope or lend a hand to anyone, especially those I love.  I pray for the sturdy stance of helpful strangers and try my best to cause no further harm, more than that will have to wait until my cleats are soundly lodged into the earth and my head is squarely upon my shoulders, for headlong and mud covered I am no help.

Topple trivial towers

*

MY MOTHERS FACE

The way that age pours down my mothers face
When she is sad reminds me
That grief runs through my blood.

Generation after generation
Has been transfused with anxious woe.
Heartbreak vexes minds full of fear.
There is no easy way
To round the bend on sharp pointed issues
The route is circuitous.

I battle the chaotic thinking to fight my way back
To a place where my mothers eyes sparkle
As they squint closed with her smile.
The war of peace is not easily won by contemporaries.
We must close ranks between the ages
To keep the joy from sheeting off our skin
And keep the sadness in proportion.

Restore us to our possible bliss
We can over take ecstasy from there.

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

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sober-The-Way-Sane/dp/144141231X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374072329&sr=8-3&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/Lines-My-Life-Sherrie-Theriault/dp/1448652820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374072576&sr=1-1&keywords=Lines+from+my+life%2C+Sherrie+theriault

What is Dear?

September 24

What is Dear?

I am angry that I was taught I must hold on for dear life instead of being taught that life is dear, but they couldn’t teach me what they didn’t know and couldn’t know what they had not discovered for themselves.  I wish I had learned earlier to love the life I was taught to cling to, but I am grateful I have been bound to life long enough to find the joy in it.  I have found that knowing joy causes me to cling all the more, cling in sweetness to what was once such a bitter task. I am angry for what I wasn’t taught, but sadder still for what they didn’t know and all that is lost in their lives to ignorance and tradition.  I wanted better for them and they wanted better for me and this is the circle which closes around the dear that I hold onto.

Make room for running starts

*

FRUSTRATING IMPROVEMENT

Improvement is frustrating, lonely and yet exhilarating.

It somehow starts with moths in the stomach

And ends with warm soup satisfaction.

Struggling, waiting, followed by further struggle

Progress made by tugging one string then the other.

It is hard to accept scaling the ropes alone

But tottering assent is always this way.

Once at the top I realize how easily I could slide to the bottom

Sometimes friction is all that keeps me up.

Establishing a new altitude is challenging.

I must ground myself in a new way.

My talents hinder and aid me.

I must open the correct doors in my mind

And avoid the traps in the floor.

Stuttering through requirements and obligations

I transform but only slowly.

Earning each drop of comfort from a job just done.

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

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sober-The-Way-Sane/dp/144141231X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374072329&sr=8-3&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/Lines-My-Life-Sherrie-Theriault/dp/1448652820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374072576&sr=1-1&keywords=Lines+from+my+life%2C+Sherrie+theriault

Rebellion Dogs

February 11

Rebellion Dogs

“Rebellion dogs our every step at first” AA’s 12 and 12

They won’t come to heal, won’t sit, won’t stay, these dogs circle waiting for signs of weakness or vulnerable skin, but there they are; they have been found out.  The ones that worry me more are those that took show and place, the dogs that stand in the shadows and lurk in the wing.  What are their names I wonder?  Their distinctive smell?  Must I identify these writhing mutts or simply call animal control?  Though this never worked with rebellion dogs these lesser pups surely would run from would be dog catchers and leave me to my dreams.  Alas, I name them and show them to my friends; we like they run in packs and are served well by honest disclosure.

Learn from old dogs

*

THINGS THAT ARE THICKER THAN WATER

Pudding, mud, ice cream, cement, sauce, paint,
 sap, drool, gravy, wood.
What is that?
A list of things that are thicker than water.

There are so many,
Why do people get so hung up on blood?
Survival, comfort, or maybe tradition?
There must be many reasons.

Why we strong-arm one another into relations
 with family.
Families we drank with
Or families we drank to get away from,
But it's not the family is it, it's us.

We have to learn to do what we need to do.
We can't force ourselves into relationships
 with anyone for any reason
Other then it is what is best for us.

Shoulds and aughts have no place in the family situation
So can I walk away from them all?
You can't do anything in the sweep of the wand,
In the same vein don't obligate yourself to people
 due to viscosity.

That sounds like a promising start.

Origins

December 7

ORIGINS

Pain-filled interactions with people better suited to be left alone changed me in the way of acceptance.  Wretched relationships with people made it difficult for me to have a loving relationship with the world.  I had imprinted as a fledgling on sarcasm and ridicule, bitter milk that starved my expectations of kind response.  I could not greet the world eagerly.  Having never embraced the world I failed to hang on as it turned.  I slid on my face and hands.  Mud covered, I try to keep an open mind and attempt a connection with this spinning orb.

Color your emotions.

*

Flight 548

What a happy flight wing to wing,

smiles, good cheer, the air is kind,

sweet, dry, easy to breathe.

I am so blessed.

I fly to destiny

watching the traveling baby circus

play around me.

Giggles and drool surround me,

infuse me with glee.

People wander the isle

looking like well loved characters

from long forgotten books and we soar.

Time does not pass any more quickly this way,

but it is similar to time in heaven

rather than time spent in hell.