Old Goldfish

January 8

OLD GOLDFISH

I got them when my sobriety was new. They were tiny little guys, ten-cent feeders. I wanted my stepson to sleep soundly in our strange jumble of a home, fresh from purchase. The tank sat on a dresser under his elevated bed, space to fit my hand to feed them, no space for baby boy to climb in. I loved my goldfish. There is never a no with gold fish; feed them as often as you want; let the water get cold. Put them in a big space, a small space, plants, no plants. No was so hard. I hate and fear no. I am hard, fish are easy.

Tears and mesmerizing aquarium. Meetings and steps. I could not keep myself alive. I don’t know how I kept the fish fed. The program kept me going, kept hope flowing, and the fish swam. In this century, when we finally are outliving wild goldfish, we are sober together by the grace of our Higher Power. It’s been a wonderful time. I am grateful to be here with the goldfish. I am grateful the goldfish are here for me, expecting so little. Maybe I could return the favor.

“I’m grateful you appreciate the fish,” says my sponsor.

Find a bell to ring

*

Lathe

Turning into a spin,

the edge cuts into my misconceptions,

the point sharp and accurate to a fault

digs into the excess I carry around,

keeping me from my useful purpose.

A good eye and steady hand

are needed lest breakthrough ruin me.

Not that all is ever lost

for a spoon with a hole

in the bowl will stir a soup smooth.

Relinquishing my burdens and trusting the carver’s tools and methods

takes great commitment.

I am carved commitment or no,

but things turn out better when I don’t flinch.

Help from Strange Sources

January 7

HELP FROM STRANGE SOURCES

I can not get my mind wrapped around the places I find help. I struggle with believing I have been helped; I struggle with disbelief at my own resistance. I am helped daily by many tiny things seen and unseen. I realize now, I was injured by the same tiny things when I was misaligned with my Higher Power.

The sun rising, the tiny star I circle in this great nothingness, it makes my whole day. The air hanging around just in case I need it, which I often do. The people who live with me (a mean feat), work with me, those who exist here with me, keep my ship on course. How very sweet of them to do mostly right every day of their lives. What a help that is. The whole ecosystem and all the weather: what would I do without it? But this is on a good day.

On a bad day, the sun is in my eyes, scorching my skin. The air is too still or well, the wind is always a problem. And People, people are an endless plight. People do things to hurt, annoy and irritate me. Full intent, targeted to me, my life, my wants destroyed. Bugs seek me and I am followed by the darkest cloud, every day, all day lurking.

I am so thankful for a sponsor and a tenth step.

Name your tears; honor them for who they are

*

Dion

Everything in the world happened before I was born

and the cinders sift through my fingers.

Accomplishing cohesion of the ashes

is a goal I have not yet achieved.

Cremains precious but meager

are a difficult building material,

shifting due to emotions and wind,

I find they stick too well to my lungs

and not well enough to anything else.

Tears help, but I will not cry forever.

I must draw from a fresh water source

and wet the powdery scratch I have inherited

and form the world anew.

Marian

January 6

MARIAN

Even if the whole world was created in a cipher and whirls off into nothingness, this is still not a commentary on the existence of God. We have today. For this moment of sobriety there is a power greater than my despair, my apprehension and it builds with me a home from the bricks of my optimism. Partnership is no prevention of inhospitable endings but is a temporary relief from desperate loneliness. The tired struggle of guaranteeing niceness spills my energy, scraping from each 24 the marrow so necessary. My open palm saves me from grasping, my open mind from grappling; I rid myself of tiny gods in tiny heavens where I do not reside. Let the blades of grass probe between my toes; there is beauty for me to see, love to hold, hope to float. Where this train originated and whatever its destination, it’s in my station now and I am grateful to be on board.

Leave your outgrown shell for the sea to take

*

Hand Me Down Pain

You have sent a cold thing into my heart

it causes my feet to move me away from you.

It need not be spoken of this is a thing of ice and lead.

Words are no help here

action is the only cure.

Eternity can be spent

with a soul bisected by slivers.

Stepping the willing way to joy and freedom

seems so unlikely from this frosty local.

Make my mind up I must.

Close my eyes and move forward.

I will leave your pain behind me

I hope not to have to leave you.

The Bag

January 5

THE BAG

I saw a bag at the top of a tall tree. Full of air, the wind pushing it; it rocked back and forth, held by the stub of a branch. It is so beautiful, so lucky, so blessed.

My sponsor frowns. “Beautiful, yes,” she says. “Lucky and blessed? Convince me.”

“The bag is lucky; it could be on my doorknob, holding garbage. Blessed? It’s free, not a care in the world, supported aloft by the strength of the tree.

“Inside your house, it’s warm. Holding garbage is useful. Lucky to be out in the cold, no purpose, no one needing your help? Blessed? Caught on a tree, trapped, sharp twigs everywhere ready to shred you, beaten by the wind?”

“You're playing devil's advocate.”

“ I do it well. What are you playing? You want to be free. What is free? You want to know for sure you’re on the right path. You think the bag knows?”

“If I were the bag, I might be mad. I might condemn the forces filling me so full I can only feel the force itself. I might be exhilarated, overtaken, free from responsibility. I might feel isolated, unstable 40 feet in the air. I might feel punished, abandoned, dismissed. I could feel a thousand different things.”

“And on the days the wind doesn’t blow?”

“Oh.”

Imitate all the animal calls you know

*

Time’s Temperament

Bubbling tides of white water,

time roils past me and my protests go unheard.

Physic feedback loops revisits raw moments

to me with inopportune exactitude.

The beautiful droplets of dawn rain down

then evaporate leaving another day’s timeline

to fan out before me.

The alternating fury and jubilation

of passing intervals leaves a challenge,

first a question of bend or break,

second a call to forecast.

Can I flex or will I live in pieces?

Shall I look at patterns

and strive for harmonious waltz

or turn my face from the calendar dreading each trice?

Bully or benefactor time rolls.

I can go with it or be under it that choice is mine.

The Flock

January 4

THE FLOCK

Today I came to a place in the road covered with birds. The nearby fields, covered in birds, the trees covered. As I approached, the birds took wing. The flock responded to my presence; each bird flew, the sky darkened with their flight; wave upon wave, boundaries intact, taking action in the face of obstacle. The gift of instinct displayed for me as I fly to my meeting, my instinct rehab. I am learning my intuition; my sponsor spoons it to me from the steps. I suck it down never knowing what it is about this process that makes me better, anymore then I know how grain and bugs make birds fly. I have theories, things I roll in my fingers when I’m nervous. I get glimmers, things my Higher Power sparkles in my eyes for a treat. In truth, I don’t know ‘how’ I don’t need to know, any more than birds need to know lift to weight ratios.

When I respond to life events, when I spend less time self-concerned, I am so much closer to self.

“Aren’t we spiritually centered?” quips my sponsor.

“Yes,” I reply. “One day in a row, I’m going for the record.”

“That’s all the birds have; you’re doing as well as they,” she smiles and pats my back.

Say hello the next time a bee seeks you out

*

One Singular Crowd

Isolation among the isolators

is replete with metaphor and theme.

Expectation blithers loudly

but is drown by the palpable inevitability of the outcome.

I pirouette in a room filled with dancers

but we do not touch,

we just spin near one another full view but little contact.

Yet I hear my heart beating in my ear

and know that I am alive.

The flush of neighboring cheeks

attests to duplicate conditions there.

We are moving together sometimes in harmony

but other times in antipathy, dependent all the same.

We are the army of independent meanings.

Individual cases sharing one slender goal

but that’s all that we need.

I didn't Know I was going to the Circus

January 3

I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS GOING TO THE CIRCUS

I show up at a meeting. I didn’t know the circus was in town. I expected calm, demure, sober behavior. My expectations were dashed, my bubble burst. There were people streaming back and forth in front of the speaker; there were kids playing among the chairs. Smokers worked the meeting in shifts, hustling out the back door and smoldering back in. The side conversations rivaled the main attraction. People dressed for the street not for the meeting. The 'bippy shirt, tights, and no skirt' was more of a high wire act than I had ever seen before. Shock cannot even begin to describe the state of my mind.

“But for the grace of God,” said my sponsor.

“No,” I said. “It’s a choice, they’re sober now.”

“Oh, yes,” she remarked.

“Weren’t you sober when you took on every man with time, looking for a fight with each of them?”

“I was cutting my chops. They understood.”

“Some of them didn’t,” said she. “Weren’t you sober when you dyed your hair red, but only half?”

“I was afraid I’d dye my scalp, so I started lower.”

“Yes, but aren’t you the one who says sudden hair color change is a sign of instability in your sobriety?”

“Yes, I do,” I replied.

“I think you would have fit well with the circus, you and your two-tone hair, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

“You’re being mean.”

“And what are you being?”

“Judgmental.”

“That’s my girl! What are you going to do about it?”

“Be grateful. Grateful I got in quick enough, grateful people let me work things out in the rooms, and grateful I still have something to learn from everyone.”

“Kiss up.”

“That’s me.”

Hold a rock in your hand until you warm it

*

Maniacs on Pogo Sticks

I fear maniacs on pogo sticks peeping through

my rural second story windows

as the smoke of paranoia curls between my ears.

Overestimating my interest to others

causes me as much harm as the underestimation.

Attributing super powers to onlookers

is a parlor trick my ego plays

to keep me occupied while my life passes by.

I sacrifice all my possibilities for fear

of what could be stolen through my keyhole.

I cut off my face to spite my poor lonely nose.

I must move forward in spite of my disquietude

for the future lay ahead, yet I do console myself

that it is harder to hit a moving target.

Spruce

January 2

SPRUCE

The gum that grows in trees and trickles down bark, that is harvested and chewed, spit out and sticks to shoes, is the very stuff that mimics my life. I race with vitality, burst my confines, am ruminated and masticated by various onlookers and then adhere myself to anyone I feel will carry me to a more advantageous venue. I needn’t apologize for my fluid nature or viscosity. I am just as I should be, always where and what I am, and at the same time, on my way to somewhere and something else.

Make a collage from junk mail

*

GOOD AS GOLD

Just because I’m as good as gold

Doesn’t mean that I win the prize.

Doesn’t mean I get my way.

Doesn’t mean I gain your heart.

Being ‘extra special sweetness and light girl’

Doesn’t secure my future.

It does prevent me from living my life

as someone I don’t like.

It contents me to keep my own company.

It is a huge improvement over living

as the raging fury I once was.

Any destination I desire is more readily assessable

from this amiable posture;

in spite of inexpert yearning.

I can breathe past you if must be.

Walk down the road holding my own hand

instead of holding a lung full of air.

But I am the treasure.

You must earn me never capture me.

Appreciate me not devalue me.

I’m good as gold.

And please know that I am the prize.