Photo copyright 2007 Gary Miller

The haunting memory of that night corrupts my sleep and dreams. The night the law came was the night our life was torn at the seams.

Wearing a mask of anger to hide my sins in an iron clad disguise. All I can remember from that night was the fear in those pretty blue eyes.

Wishing I could go back to the future like Doc and Marty McFly, this prison time is real and staying strong is the option I can try.

What was done is not alright, yet we are not always in the wrong. We were branded outlaws like in that old Wild West song.

The look in those pretty blue eyes is what I remember about that night. Please always stand firm my dear, don’t ever give in or lose the will to fight.

The confusion of that night  was hazy but turned to a vivid blur. Being controlled by addiction is a sickness and prison is not a cure.

Those pretty blue eyes will always remind me what I have done. They remind me of the good and bad and I couldn’t forget our unborn son.

Hindered by feelings of anger, hatred and heartache pain. Now I am walking with a scar of embarrassment covered with a dirty stain.

I dream of your true blue eyes. It never changes, it’s always the same. I am sorry for everything my dear I feel bad and all sorts of shame.

A letter to the kid who broke into my neighbor's car last Thursday.

You suck, kid.  And I don't really care that you're a drug addict. I'm one too.  You owe Mrs. Jones a new windshield and an apology.  You should have seen her crying when she came outside Friday morning.  Poor woman.  She worked so hard for that car.   

"Work?" you say.

Well kid, it's an English word.  It's defined as "mental or physical activity as a means of earning income." The place one goes to work is called a "job."  And as a drug addict in this economy, you're gonna need two.  Maybe even three if you plan to keep getting those bad tattoos and making your earlobes bigger. 

I guess I'm old fashioned, but in my day a man had to earn his drugs.  That's why God made so many restaurants for us to work at.

If you're alive 10 years from now and talking about your recovery at the middle school, maybe I'll see things differently. But for now, you suck.  The neighborhood's not safe any more.  Cars are only the beginning.  Then it's breaking and entering, assault and armed robbery.  

Sorry if your dad wasn't around.  Mine either.  Sorry if your mom's crazy.  Mine too.  But please stop fucking up the world.  A lot of nice people are trying to live here.

Sincerely,

Anonymous     

A Morning When I'm Using

I wake up to the sun beaming on my face. The smell of stale liquor just consumes the room. I try and get myself motivated to get up and take a shower but the thought of walking into the bathroom and looking at myself scares me. So instead of facing reality, I go into the kitchen and open another bottle, thinking to myself I’ll deal with reality another day. All the while the alcohol is just making it much worse. And the self pity takes over, getting trapped in my own thoughts, hating life, but still not being able to put the bottle down. Not having any regard for my well-being. My cat looks at me as if he is saying ‘What is wrong with you. Get your shit together. And me looking at him as if to say ‘Leave me alone. I don’t wanna deal with your shit today.’

A Morning Clean and Sober

I wake up to my phone ringing, it’s my mother calling me on the first of the month to say rabbit rabbit. We joke for a sec and then get off the phone. Before I do anything I stop and say a prayer and thank God for waking me up. I walk into the bathroom not even thinking about the mirror and proceed to take a shower and brush my teeth. I go into the kitchen and start making my usual breakfast, eggs, sausage, and onion and turn on sportscenter so I can get my much needed sports news. I sit in my living room eating my breakfast as well as my cat eats right beside me, we look at each other as if we are saying ‘Today is gonna be a good day.’ I get up, go outside feeling nothing but happiness and thank the Lord for a beautiful day and then I say to myself, ‘Another day sober,’ an continue with my day. 

Congratulations.
You are the crown of this Day.
From each second that you would
punch the clock. Push it and fill your
mind with platforms. Platforms that
will hold your future.
Congratulations, you are in your future.
So here for you, I hold some
Navigational suggestions. If you
remember them, they will serve you.
Seek friendship.
Be honest with yourself.
Plan your weeks and the Days
will take care of themselves.
Find someone to love.
If you have someone to love, love them.
Seek problems.
Solve problems.
Make the world a better place.
You are the master of your destiny.
Find joy and share it.
God Bless you.

(Click photos to advance through slideshow)

The Barre Writers for Recovery group had a fantastic reading Wednesday night at Studio Place Arts in Barre. We presented work by 13 readers in all, with most reading in person. We had a packed house, and the responses from the audience were just incredible. People commented on the quality of the writing, the emotion it contained, and the courage shown by the readers, who shared some extremely personal work. Special guests included Writers for Recovery Executive Director Bess O'Brien and several folks from the Burlington Writers for Recovery Group, who came all the way to Burlington to support their fellow writers. Deb and I are so pleased at the commitment and hard work of the members of the Barre group. Thanks to everyone for a great night, and for Sue Higby of Studio Place Arts for hosting!

Gina Conn from the Times-Argus came by to talk with Deb and me about the Barre Writers for Recovery Group, then wrote a really nice profile of the Barre group. Camera ace Jeb Wallace-Brodeur made the two of us look pretty good. You can see the result by clicking here.

“Now?” The word floated from the phone like a small gray cloud which hovered motionlessly, then descended upon her, leaving Lizzie unable to speak or move.  Without thinking, she answered, “I suppose so.”  Words were sticking, getting caught; the conversation between friends seemed strained. In the silence, her heart pounded like a prisoner’s might after seeing a hole in the chain link fence. 

This country kitchen, lace curtains, barn board cabinets, decorated with her pottery began to feel like someone else’s.  She sat there on the old, painted, chair for what seemed like a long time and told her friend that she would think about it --- leaving, that is, but she wasn’t sure she could.  How could she leave?  “This is my home,” she thought, as pictures of more tender times rushed in like water wanting to drown her.  Lizzie’s knees began to quiver.          

In the mill town one steamy summer Sunday evening two summers ago, Lizzie sat watching her clothes spin in the dryer, a paperback balanced on her knees: size 4 dungarees, two tiny sweatshirts, bibs, jeans, work shirts, underwear; a basket of single socks, unclaimed tee shirts and a child’s jacket shared the solitary row of plastic chairs with her.  The washing machine hummed, clanged, stopped.  In its place, muffled bass notes drifted through the ragged screen door that opened onto an alley out back.  “Night Moves” moaned Bob Seeger, “…oh-oh oh, I remember those Night Moves.” Breathing in the seductive sounds, moonlight glistening off the notes, cool blue lights leaked out from the bar next door and a warm amber glow beckoned Lizzie in. “Just for a minute, until the clothes are dry,” she thought. “There’s nothing wrong with a cold beer, a little conversation.”

His smile made his dark eyes wrinkle; his softly curling dark hair barely touched his collar. With a slight raise of an eyebrow, Lizzie sat down beside him, his left sleeve brushing against her arm. The muscular forearms of a drummer rested on the bar. “Hi, nice evening,” he said in a gentle voice and innocent lisp. Her chest and shoulders relaxed, and she ordered up the beer that would make them friends; and each cool beer gave them more in common. The wad of quarters for the languishing laundry bulged in her hip pocket.  “I can tell you know your music,” he said, adding, “I’m a musician, I oughtta know.” He played ZZ Top to her Elton John, she played Billy Joel to his Lynyrd Skynnard;The Doobie Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, through the newness of the night, the musician and the young mother exchanged their bar bullshit and crazy dreams.           

Now in the kitchen that felt like someone else’s, Lizzie sat like petrified wood unable to pull coherent thoughts together, so important now; in this kitchen. Lizzie remembered, she needed leave now, make a plan. He couldn’t see her putting her daughter’s and her things in boxes, moving. “Please, don’t let him come.” She thinks of her daughter. The time is now.

Gathering her desperate fear into thoughtless movement, burying her feeling of panic, Lizzie summoned her instinctual determination and walked through the hallway into the bedroom.  Lizzie ruffled through her closet to find her knapsack and draped it innocently on the bedpost. Above all, he cannot see her gathering their things. Again, she sees her daughter’s face in her mind’s eye. Swiftly she snatches up the telephone bills with all the familiar numbers. Lizzie grabs her journal, photos, notebooks, and stows them under the mattress. Back into the kitchen, she finds her notepad and dials 411: information for battered women’s shelters; she makes a list: Barb would be Burlington; Amy, Albany; Penny, Portland -- everything in code. He couldn’t see these, he couldn’t know.  Clothes for a few days, make-up, shampoo. Good Night Moon, toys, Teddy. Now racing from room to room, the shrill ring of the phone snapped her back into reality. “My car shit the bed,” he said. “Can you pick me up?” “I can’t,” Lizzie whispered, and hung up. This was it; the time is now.   

Lizzie glanced toward the driveway, her old blue Subaru, with its two black fenders, stood capably by: gas, money, checkbook.  NOW!  With a raging heart and swift, direct movement, Lizzie tears through the apartment one the last time, stopping at the refrigerator, she grabs a wine cooler and shoves it into her pocket. “Good-bye,” she silently mouths to no one, and gently waves good-bye to their home.           

Photo copyright 2012 Gary Miller

Since I am generally extremely concerned about how people perceive me, and worried that they may not have the complete picture of my amazing depth and complex personality, with like, real issues and stuff, you know, such a fascinating person that all I think about is myself and only those events going on that have a direct impact on me, I agonize over appearance and every spoken utterance, usually agonizing over making myself look like I don’t care about any of that, again, because I’m so deep, man. And if I’m around a woman I don’t know too well, but whose proximity increases my heart rate out of fear she might not like me, all this nonsense is of course multiplied by infinity. I’ve been in this state yet again recently, which seems to be a pattern I like to repeat. I’m just dying to demonstrate to her that I’m a person worth being interested in, but how do I do this? Trying to be funny seems to be my default mode, and that includes trying way, way too hard. To the point where it is obvious that I spent a scary amount of time preparing whatever it is, a thing or a wacky personal anecdote, anything. But ever since a friend called me flaky, years and years ago, I have this desperate need to show that I’ve been through things, dealt with pain and bad things, and consequently have all these deep emotions and shit that other people might just not get. Yeah it’s a tiring way to live life and the payoff, if you will, for all this anxiety and time spent mostly doing and saying nothing because that would involve decisions has been basically zero.

 What does this have to do with jail? Reasonable question. Just about all of the pain and bad experiences I’ve racked up happened simply through being an addict, a pretty bad one I’d say. So lately I wonder a lot about using any of that as a way to show normal people why I’m interesting and stuff. Since over the years the only constant life events and growth has been in the field of drinking a lot and devouring powders and pills, that is, or feels like, the major part of who I am. So of course I try to figure out how to let new people know this in a way that makes me look good somehow. And adding the year in jail as the latest accomplishment only makes my brain try to spin that in a way that shows I like, have a badass side or something. Since jail in Swanton, Vermont is as rough as it gets.

 The question of exactly how I ended up there probably would come up. At first I like to say just “drugs” or “heroin” or “drug stuff.” Never alcohol, and especially not DUIs. There’s nothing cool at all about DUIs. The thing is I got the first two through textbook alcoholic drinking. I may as well have just followed an instruction manual. Probation, CRASH, all that stuff. It is true that DUI 3 had nothing to do with alcohol, and yes I had started heroin by then, and shooting everything, and all the cool stuff like that, but it just came down to driving a car while all fucked up, and getting caught, again.

The sentence was 1-3 years but I could stay out if I was sober and completed a lot of time in programs and groups. At the time I hated my PO but he really did try to keep me out and have a chance to lead some sort of life. But all I wanted to do was steal drugs from sharps containers in the exam rooms at my job at the Community Health Center. Prying the lid off, dumping everything on the floor and pawing at the pile of needles for disposed pills. Hoping no one would come in. Then a doctor left a box of fentanyl patches on a desk one day. That was a no-brainer. Also getting caught was a no-brainer for the police. I was a known addict on supervision at the time and only one of a few people who could have possibly taken them. So with that, I got put in the car and driven up to Swanton. 

They even tried to get me out of jail and do some more programs and another rehab. I, apparently, was determined to “keep coming back” just not exactly in the AA manner. The booking officers shook their heads the three times I left and then returned within a month. I had no way to get alcohol and drugs anymore but still needed to fuck up my brain. I remembered hearing in a rehab that teenagers were getting high on dust-off, the canned air for electronics. Anything was something I would try by then, and Kmart and Radio Shack were close. Not good. That stuff is bad, bad news. I would stand in front of a mirror with it and feel outside myself and like I was staring at someone I did not recognize. I thought I left the planet, I thought I was a ghost, I was positive I was in an alternate dimension. It just about always ended in a blackout and collapsing wherever I happened to be. You can basically feel the brain cells dying. So naturally I had to have it constantly.

Within probably less than two weeks I got myself banned and issued no trespass orders from any CCTA bus, the downtown mall, the YMCA, any public park, and any UVM property. My life was getting up, walking to Kmart and standing by the door until they opened at eight. I’d get let in with my big down jacket on, fill it up with all the cans I could, and walk out. I have no idea how I avoided arrest with that. It wasn’t subtle. Then I’d find an indoor place, since it was winter, and suck down cans until I blacked out. Sometimes I woke up, kept going, and blacked out somewhere else and sometimes I awoke in the ER. They released me from the ER once without removing any cans from my backpack, and I was back in 20 minutes not even making it out of the building. Someone found me in the lobby bathroom. One time the collapsing part was in the street on Shelburne road. I got delusional, paranoid, forgot who I was, and just plain hallucinated stuff. The places I could legally enter in the winter were getting slim so a bus shelter or the woods had to do. Suffice to say these activities somehow kept bringing me back to AB or I unit at Northwestern State Correctional Facility. The last time they let me out on supervision I returned in less than 24 hours after bringing the stuff to my check-in at the Phoenix House.

So this is the recent history that I want to misguidedly twist into a reason to be likable. My fear of not being liked and rejection or god forbid someone having a not-positive thought still runs the show a good percentage of the time, so I get caught up in constant self-centered thinking mode feeling that I need to be liked by others in order for me to feel ok with myself. And especially agonizing when wanting a particular woman to think I’m likable. Some of the stuff I’ve done in just the year since getting out and a job at a building that doesn’t only contain men is super cringe-worthy. “Desperate flirting” I’d call it. No wonder people are maybe not backing away, but giving me a little space. I’m so self-centered that I cannot even attempt fictional writing or creating characters that are not just myself. I don’t think I could write about a different personality and have it be believable. It would be a shallow movie-poster person. It’s like my mind just cannot grasp the concept of other thoughts besides my own. I need to stay aware of this. The next time I consider using jail to appear a certain way to someone I need to just think about saying: “I spend a year in jail for huffing. That’s right, I huff things. I’m a huffer. A bad one. Huffer Seeks Soulmate.” Well, enough. That’s a sad world to get lost in. 

Oh, Stephen. I'm puffed. Thank you for walking with me. I should do this more often. But the smoking, you know. It slows me down. Slows me down. Let's stop here. Let's rest a moment here. I want to show you something. Something, I've thought about for a long time.

You see that big house?

He nodded. He hadn't heard this story.

I wanted Tony to buy it. Her voice catches.

I wanted him to buy it. Buy it so that we could turn it into a Bed & Breakfast. My life is so hard. I have no purpose any more. I'm so depressed. She turned towards him. He looked in her eyes. Her spark was gone.

Then the spark was back. She was in the hospital. She knew she was leaving soon. She was coming home. She was coming home to die. Now the depression had moved. Moved into her family.

I couldn't watch it. Like a big ship passing, but I couldn't get on board.

Get busy or surrender your ghost. I've always had a problem with leaving. I'm the one who wants to know what happens next.

With depression there is no next. We just find ourselves in an old swamp. There is no current no wave, no wire. We are unplugged and we think even God doesn't know us.

Hope is a wall that has crumbled. We crumble. If we saw ourselves walking down the street, we would turn away; we would cross and avoid ourselves. We think we are rejected. Tears come. Trust goes. And our smiles would not be able to hold onto our faces. And why? We cry. Why does this hell on earth possess us? Is it some trick of the devil? No Question says the artist. We don't want to cheer up. Happiness is an island way out to sea. One we don't deserve to walk along. Because we feel guilty, it's not ours to have. We are spoiling and our flesh feels poisoned. And the only balance to our unworthiness is to rot. Is to withdraw inward. To climb into the word obscurity. To twist round about the letters so we are hidden. So we surrender all our senses. We are invisible within the word.

But then we hear a laugh and a cry. How is it we can hear when we are so far away? There is another laugh and golden sounds we have never heard before. We shudder. As if we have awakened from a long dark sleep. The Golden Sounds open the eyes of our soul. Like hands. Like soft loving hands. We look down at our feet. We are on the sand. We are on the beach. How did we get here? Were we just praying? And then we see Him. He is our older Brother. He is dressed in White and golden light is all around Him. He calls us by name. We have lost sight of our depression. Its steely grip is no more. It is like a ship behind us that has sunk into the sea. And the light breeze over our shoulder suddenly sounds like a long rushing wave. A wave of Joy.

"I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry."

"And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even Praise unto His Name.”

For this and our Joy we are grateful.

The Psalm brings strength and Comfort. In the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

James James James was his name. He never got to meet his parents to discus that issue. James, as we will call him, as seeing that saying his full name is way to annoying, was waiting with his cards, staring at the heavyset man across from him, trying his best to remain calm. This was the World Series of Poker event, the last game, and only himself and this man left to discard. A person with a yapping dog was just outside the building, but it was all he could think about. Not whether the man was holding good cards and that was why he raised the jackpot, or whether he just made an outstanding poker face. If he was lying, he was the best one James has ever come across. When it came time for James to either fold or join the pot he just froze. "Go tell that asshole to shut that dog up," he wanted to scream. "Just give me a few more minutes to think," he wanted to plead. But time was up, and James had to decide. He threw his money in, crossing fingers and toes, swearing that if he lost that he would find that dog, one way or another. The man threw down 2 pairs and the relief James felt was indescribable. Maybe I'll go get myself a dog, he said, as he basked in the glory of winning.

I not only did the best I could but I did the only thing I could. There is no way I was going to get through this life without becoming addicted. The pull was too much to resist without first discovering why I should.   

Information is a strange word. Imagine there are levels of knowing. Think of knowing in a chemical sense, in the sense that a memory association is a chemical reaction. Now consider that we are always true to our structure and conditioning. Then doesn’t it make sense that we would always behave, not the best, but the only way we can, determined by what we happen to know at the time. And let’s not confuse “knowing” at a verbal sense with “knowing” as an organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment.  

At twenty-nine years old I didn’t know how to live without drinking and drugging. I simply did not know how. But I still had the ability to be re-trained. My addiction hadn’t taken that away from me. That which can be trained can be re-trained.

I discovered that most of what I didn’t know was how to give myself permission to accept myself with all my frailties and faults. I hadn’t been trained to do that. I had not been trained to look down at my own two feet to see where I was standing. I did not know what it meant to practice. I did not know how the system worked. I constantly got the cart in front of the horse. I had images of what the ideal me, the average me, should be like but I gave little regard to the specific me. This confusion led to frustration and demoralization. Of course I drank, who wouldn’t.  

Much like playing a musical instrument, one improves with practice. The trick for me was to sit with my frailties and faults, just sit with them, and accept them, before moving on. I learned to be somewhere. I wasn’t use to doing that.

My personal limitations are what I had tried to hide. With the help of my sponsor and my new friends I began to laugh at my mistakes. Not in a sarcastic self-hating way but rather with the knowledge that my mistakes were perfect, they made sense, they were organic; they are the how of how I change.  

I am learning to live with uncertainty. By the time I know what I’m about to do 99% of the mechanics that will move me along has already happened unconsciously. To rely on rational thought is rather ideal. My addiction has made me come to terms with how I’m built. At last, I feel I am part of a system I do not fully understand and I love it that way.

All I need to know, if I want to survive, is that the most important thing I will do today is stay clean and sober. My curiosity has come back to life. My addiction has not taken that away.  

Photo copyright 2014 Gary Miller

I am from a place
in the stars.
A place of wonder and amazement
Angels follow me wherever I go
And whisper words of hope
and inspiration even
in a world of evil and deception
where I discover anger and injustice
that controls the different cultures
that I meet.
The innocent are blocked in the prisons
and the guilty
parade in the street
I am from a place
where forgiveness is a way of life.
But I have forgotten what the word
means.
Now I am studying the fruits
of my anger and learning again
the magic of overcoming them.

"A Morning When I'm Using"

"A Morning Clean and Sober" 

"I like it here," I explain. I want him to understand why I am absolutely motionless.

Overnight, the bed became softer and warmer. The colors in the room are playing very nicely together; I'm noticing how much I love these curtains. They're just so right.

I can hear him open the cupboard, grab a cup, pour coffee. He gives a Splenda packet a few taps, his coffee a stir, the spoon lands on the side of the sink. I'm still unwilling to budge. I find the covers over my head and bliss.

Our friendship began the day that Mr. Haynes was struck by lightning. It was a splendid day with hardly a cloud in the sky when seemingly out of no where I heard a, BOOM, and I saw Mr. Hayes thrown right off the tractor-mower he was running in the outfield of my high school. Right after that the sky quickly darkened and it began to rain and lightning all over the place but at the time of that first BOOM it was as though that single bolt of lighting was aimed right at Mr. Haynes. You could say it was his wake up call, and it turned out to be mine, too. 

Even though I wasn’t related to Mr Haynes and in fact we had only shared a few conversations before that day, the ambulance driver assumed we were very close, perhaps a father and son. I didn’t mind because as the driver intuited I had become quite attached to Mr. Haynes. Mr. Haynes had not said a word since being thrown off the mower but his eyes were quite alert. When I first reached him his eyes were closed and he wasn’t breathing but as I bent down his eyes opened and that is the moment when our long friendship began.

It’s been ten years now since Mr. Haynes was called to the service of the Lord. We bought houses next door to one another on the same quiet street in the outskirts of Burlington. An extended family decided to move to Florida and we took over where they left off. We share a vegetable garden that runs together behind our yards. I have a wife and a two year old son now and we all go to the same church together.

Mr. Haynes still hasn’t said a word and as I’ve watched him interact with people over the years I sense he prefers it that way. Each interaction takes time, takes a slowing down, and forces an attention to one another. My. Haynes is rarely in a hurry, it’s as though he understands something about time that the rest of us either don’t know or simply chose to ignore. It’s as though that BOOM had sparked an attunement to what living is all about, and luckily I was there to see it in his eyes just as he became aware.

You may have heard the saying, be careful where you go, because you absorb the company you keep. Well I think that’s true because when I go out to the garden and weed and harvest with Mr. Haynes I slow down, way down, and I can feel some of what Mr. Haynes feels. I can feel time. I can feel it in the soil, in the sky, in the vegetables. My wife wishes that I would talk more. She says it would be better for our son. But I think I was imprinted that day that Mr. Haynes came back from the dead and it made me realize just how much of my talking is done to distract myself from the precious few moments of living I have. That lighting bolt made my living feel like a gift to use in anyway I please. I hate to squander the moments with nervous chatter. I notice when I’m in the garden with Mr. Haynes how quite and intentional his movements are while mine are more herky-jerky and full of inward chatter.

Perhaps the lightning bolt really was directed at My Haynes. Whenever I hear a meditation bell I think of that bolt of lightning and I go quiet. Not as quiet as My Haynes for my mind is still full of chatter but quieter. I am reminded to be grateful for living, whatever it is, and I am reminded to express this by paying attention to being alive. The big bell in the sky can ring at any time for me and all my chatter will be gone forever. I want my living to be aware of dying. Dying is the soil in which I grow.

I don’t know if there is a Lord, but I know Mr. Haynes, and he was once dead and now he’s not.

            He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.

This is what my addiction couldn't take away from me. My heartbeat. It's about the only thing it didn't take. Even when I wanted it to stop beating, it continued on. I came so close to dying so many times but didn't. Grand mal seizures, gastric obstructions, my mother unable to wake me, my family finding me and thinking I was dead. Even when I was ready to kill myself. There is one reason I am alive, and that is my higher power. I pray that I never forget that my heartbeat is the only thing that addiction didn't take from me. To pick up a drink or a drug means death for me, period.

     The fact was that all that warm weather and sunshine was making her feel just awful.  She wanted it to be grey, dark, and cold outside.  She wanted the rain to come pelting down and wash away her tears that were building in her big blue eyes.  She wanted the wind to howl along her so no one would hear her moaning and screaming aloud, instead of inside her head.  She wanted the warm weather and sunshine to echo and enhance the way she felt.

     She was suddenly very angry at the warmth of the sunshine, trying to warm up her heart and make her feel comforted.  She turned away from it, and wished a cloud would come and hide the sun.  She didn’t want to be comforted.  Not today.  Not on this day where all there was was sadness and darkness.  Then she felt a pang of guilt, as she knew he wouldn’t want her to feel this way.  She thought that maybe he was the sun, and he did warm her heart.

     So she turned to face the sun to let it warm her as she walked away from the gravestone.

My dearest addiction,

Oh, if I would only put reins on you! How you have driven me from place to place. Up all night no time to say Grace. And he says without complement. What’s next? What’s next? This project. That project. This book. That book. Your book. Their books!

More and more like a high tide that never completes. Waves that rise up and come up and up until arms and legs are shaking weak and then they fall and there are no more wings now to hold me up. The addiction has ripped them off and so I look down and my addiction has no reins and I crash and cannot rise. Because the addiction is now too heavy and I must sleep far away from what I am addicted to...work.

So now there are bars between my addiction and me.

Copyright 2007 Gary Miller

No one was there to experience

my joy, my peace, my absolution.

I made it not a second too soon,

Or even worse, not a second later.

I didn't mean to sound bitter.

It wasn't a particularly

bad life. I had all the amenities

One could ask for.

But, even so, it was still living.

The good times weighed on me just

As hard, knowing the pendulum

Was about to swing at any moment.

I'll hear you out.

At first, I'll just look down at my feet as you speak, watching the steps we take, and letting your words rattle. Those words will rearrange and stack themselves, becoming cohesive as we move through them.

 Then, I will look at your face. I'll tilt my head and squint my eyes a little bit, because I really want to see what you are saying. I want to watch the way your mouth and eyes are moving, waiting for the corners of each to telegraph the truth you're about to speak.

 And when you put it all together, I will let your honesty wash over every cell of my being as that soul layer that is around both of us breathes out, then in, and expands.

I was there when you were born. A new man had to be sworn. Got hurt, my head was torn. Got mad wouldn’t eat your corn. Tough guy turned to Jello, being dad made me mellow. That’s when people saw me, the good fellow. Missed your birthdays turned me yellow. When you are gone my mind is a hearse. It’s like a never ending curse. I am stuck, stuck in reverse. That’s when I met the demon, drugs, bad excuses, but I miss our bear hugs. In your pictures you’re getting older. I fear with age I will get a cold shoulder. Poison minded thoughts corrupt. Sobriety halted, started abrupt. Out there I felt like your hero. In here I am a minus one to zero. Family badly ashamed. Still this wild heart couldn’t be tamed. It’s me, everyone I blamed to the burnt bridges badly maimed. I haven’t seen you since eight or nine but still pretended everything was fine. Cowboy up stop the whine. You still have plenty, plenty of time. The clock is still ticking so stay out the grime. I have to think the thoughts of good choices. No need to listen, others’ voices. I think of you every day you probably wonder when I am here to stay. You’re on the top shelf. To get there I have to work on myself. Should be a given, shouldn’t be hard but it’s a trap. Slicked with lard. It starts by feeling sad, I cry, then I get mad. To feel better I then get high, some relief I blow out a sigh. It changes me that I can’t deny. Like a wolf howl at the moon. Don’t wake up until the afternoon. I sit here all alone. It’s impossible the way cannot be shown. Blinded by all the hate. I wonder if this is it, my fate. Please help me on this quest. I swear on Hailey’s comet, my behavior is at its best.