“This Too Shall Pass”
by Anonymous
Northern State Correctional Facility

 This too shall pass

The words were scratched onto a piece of notebook paper

Yellowed with water stains and cigarette smoke

Arriving at my prison cell as I begin a sojourn through hell

That will last twenty years.

Tears burn at the corner of my eyes

So much the powder in the corners of the paper

Scored off the yard, used up and disintegrating in toilet water.

The high too shall pass

Like the sands of time that is my life

But will the agony pass as well?

I think not.

But with the parting words of the hope-lost lover,

It seems that my path should change.

Must change.

Or sacrifice the empty carapace of the life I have left.

This too shall pass.

The demons once fallen will never rise again.

Unless I continue to place them with powder and paper

Disintegrating with my life in the toilet water.

One crumple paper must be the last,

It must be I who removes the damage

And ends the chaotic cycle of decay.

“For Too Long”
by Anonymous
Northern State Correctional Facility

For too long have the waters

Raged above my head.

Sunlight trickles through

Angel hair thin.

It sears my pale skin

And my night-blinded eyes.

I am drowned beneath

These crashing waves

Scrambling for the surface

Unsure of what the land will bring.

Breaking the surface,

I taste air as if for the first time.

Now it’s my turn.

Too long have I been claimed

By the shadowy depths

Threatened to be smothered

Into futile oblivion.

No.

I cast aside

The velvet cloak of delirium

And choose once more to stand.

“Do You Know?”
by Anonymous
Northern State Correctional Facility

Do you know what I just heard?

Do you know what he’s in for?

Do you know what he is?

After being cast out of the light of society

One would think to find some commonality,

If not some comaraderie,

Amongst the dregs of humanity.

Yet we squabble to find who is first

Among the last

Who is king

Of the garbage heap

Never mind that we are all the same

To those beyond these four walls.

The word “inmate” is said through gritted teeth

Like a racial slur.

“Inmate lives don’t matter”

“They make their own beds”

And to no one do we have recourse

Because who would listen to the voice of a monster

Let they find that we all

Make our own beds

And that we aren’t so different after all.

“I Still Remember that House”

 Took my current paramour there the other day. We stood in the gravel 

driveway of the church and I pointed past the gazebo 

to the grave of the Shih Tzu I brought to prom*. 

How many times have we given that house Puck’s “Through the House”?

Do you remember? Or a Rumi poem prompts a tear to read it accurately?

We were all married there.  Nana would wear the wedding dress, 

the one my mother wore, the one I wore 

to the end of the driveway for a picture to send as Cheesecake

to the Colonel during WWII. Ostentatious and humorous.

“Good enough for Benson” was the family expression for 

‘no need to gussy up’, not 

Sunday best, “Good enough.” 

I still remember that house, the one where I first came to Vermont 

at eight months, and every house which will never live up to it yet.  

It’s a sleep-aiding technique to try to recreate and remember 

every bedroom, but there’s not one of us, even those who do not dream, 

who have not visited it again in their sleep.  

*Baby Princess Astronaut Wraparound Splotch.  You tried to resuscitate her mouth to mouth.  She died in our apartment on July 11. Persephone was born 22 July.  The Dog Star rise. 

“How Did It Happen?”

They only know time after the Big Bang, not before, not during

The four causes in Aristotle without the watchmaker

How did it happen, now that there is a one-in-one chance of it happening?

What were the conditions?  The scientist, the sleuth, and mendicant prefer 

the journey to the goal.  Is it time I write my own Sherlock Holmes-lore 

story about it?  The first year’s answer was, “I had help.” A lot of help was true.

I had to have the whole job done, the whole rehaul, the whole recall: the real 

“I’m gonna be a brand new bug” meets Book of Job. I had read everything back then.

How did it happen? It was amazing that it hadn’t yet happened for me.  Who better 

than me to have it happen to? Did I know when it happened or did it escape 

my notice?  Did I just stare at it until it changed color, an over-focus, not manic.

My friend said he’d been to 58 meetings in his life, I had done that in five weeks.  

Is it happening again?  Happening continually, or happened?  I still can watch the 

Golden Girls to help me through an evening.  The obsession disappeared, evanesced, continues to fade.  First year, fraught vegan cheesecake.  Last year it was popsicles.  This year 

I may bring popsicles again.   I don’t know how it happened, but it seems to me 

I am now entirely different.  Did I get exchanged, renewed, discarded, rebuilt?

Like getting a recall on all my parts.  I had so many people working on me:

A very loose jalopy with the semblance of a cohesive girl.

“I Just Don’t Know”

Socrates said, all I know is I don’t know.

Smartest person in the room may well be the most ignorant, 

and open, willing to learn, willingness

readiness is all, right?  Heard that before, right?

When Peter and Peter’s wife took 

me and my shih tzu on that canoe 

We mused about who had taken these paths before

I said the Old English word for “Ocean” is “Whale Road”

The professor had claimed he knew Johnny Depp,

Extolling his virtue as best actor, because he was most vapid

An empty vessel, entirely open, the perfect instrument to 

let a role inhabit him.  Aren’t we filled with knowledge in the same way?

Like a haunting?  Do we possess knowledge or are we possessed by it?

I’m coming to know my preconceptions deserve to be challenged.

The liability I once  counted as strength was in extrapolating, 

Seeing the chess moves ahead, 

summing all y’all up so that I may isolate.

Peter says, “put your demons on the PA 

so you can be party to their deliberations”

Jeff says, “put your demons on the witness stand  

so you can cross examine them”

I can quote all sorts, it can penetrate 

my skin like reverse sunscreen.

I am learning listening over editorializing, 

although I like to curate memories, contextualizing them 

without glorifying them.  I can listen now, 

but I just don’t know, I synthesize.

I Still Remember that House

Kansas.  I can't remember much

About living there,

Not the street

Or even the neighborhood.

But I remember that house,

The sky, the big green lawn,

The swingset where I encouraged

My little sister to climb

The ladder to the slide.

She chickened out at the top,

Tried to turn around, but fell

And broke her leg.

It was 1968 - so she must

Have been 3,

And I was 5.

I know it was 1968

Because Dr. King got shot

When we lived in Ft. Leavenworth.

I remember that because 

My dad was a student

At the Army War College.

His table mate was Colin Powell.

My dad said, "They're really

Raising Cain up in Kansas City,"

And I didn't know what that meant.

Captain Powell said, "He was a good man,"

And my dad agreed.

The Missouri River must not

Have been far away.

I remember the clouds and the wind,

The steep waves on the river

And a red and white diver's buoy,

Bobbing on the surface -

And learning that someone was down below,

Down below those dark waters

On that dreary dreary day. 

“What’s Hidden Beneath the Surface”

What’s hidden beneath the surface?

Being late? Not on time? Not showing up?

Showing down? Somewhere else? Where? 

Where is she? Did you screw up again? Did 

you walk through batwing doors and get smacked 

in your face? Knocked out, Thrilla-in-Manila style?

Socked, punched, whacked, biffed in the head? 

Did you see stars? Where? Which stars did you see? 

Constellations? Tell me. I want to know what happened 

when you showed up late. Loaded with anxiety, and 

expectation. Released. Mesmerized.

Ready to write it down. To spill the beans.To dissemble 

the assembled, to take it all apart like an axonometric 

diagram of an exploding fridge in an Antonioni movie. 

Light up a big one Martin. Let’s watch Zabriskie Point 

and be stoned when the fridge blows up, and the beautiful girls with 

their golden oyster shoulders move through space like piranhas

eating crabs chewing the cud letting the lamps know it’s okay to shine

to be brave, to be new, to say f-you baby this is me. 

Magical Awesome Beautiful Free! 

“Now It’s My Turn”

Now it’s my turn. To dive into the shadow. To 

spear the fish of discontent.To revel

to embrace the cactus. To ink

the spot. To sign on the dotted line.

To fake it to make it. Now it’s my turn 

to use the phone. To dial the number to sit

on the grey metal housing for

four fat London phone books.

Perhaps I should consider whether it 

might give way under my weight.

As sounds come from my mouth. As

ballet dancers move past with their

eccentric garments, and their knitted 

woolen hosiery impeccably tousled around

their gifted ankles somehow managing to

avoid contact with scattering trash finding 

it’s way to Euston Road. I forget

the name of the pub where the Pogues used

to play after their brief chaotic commute

from their unruly domicile on Burton Street….

06-17-20. Peter Fried.

Do you have a minute to talk to me rather than at me? Do I enjoy our conversation ? I enjoy a minute or two when you have time to talk with me. The hardest time to listen is when you have a minute to only talk at me. Do you have a minute to talk with me I asked the doctor? Do you have a minute to talk with me I asked my husband? Do you have a minute to talk with me I asked myself? Myself was the hardest one to get to cooperate. Myself gave me the silent treatment. But as I work my way toward a journey of with instead of at, myself is loosening up a bit, coming around. Do I  have a minute to talk? I think I do.

I lost myself in my own darkness. I found myself in my own darkness. I lost myself in my own light and found myself there, too. I have continued to lose and find myself in the shifting shades of life. I have lost myself in the corners of my mind, and I have had to peel and pry back the edges to find myself lurking there again, wedged under some small spaces. In those spaces, I must root around and pick up the broken pieces of myself that were scattered when I lost myself. I glue them back together carefully, so that they resemble a whole part of something more recognizable. I keep finding these pieces hiding under all beams and struts that have caved in from the dark storms that blew in and caused them to be lost in the first place. They have scattered far and wide. I journey to pick them and carry them, oh so carefully, so that they can continue to be pieced together. The renovation continues, a years-long project to reconstruct a building that will last. I lost all the parts, but I am finding them again. I am finding them again, so that I may build something beautiful.

But...
We DO RECOVER...

It has been a little over 5 years now..
That I claimed my freedom...
from opiates..
Has it been easy...
Not at all..
I am in Chronic pain..
everyday...
But this is and will be a fact of my life..How I choose to live with it is also my choice...
And this belief of others...
I'm not sure..
If that really matters..If we do it for others..that's not real...
But it is also part of the process...
In having others believe in us...it strengthens the beliefs in ourselves...

I would never have believed..
I could have the life I have now..
But perhaps others did...
Especially at a time...
When I couldn't love or believe in ourselves..

I believed I could recover and I held fast to those beliefs...

With a lot of hard work and everyday...

And I still get judgement calls..once in a while...

But Believe it ..or not..

I know the truth...and that's all that matters...
I am an addict...
No longer in active addiction...
I am thankful to have traveled those roads...
And so humble...
I am not on them anymore❣

Last week, we lost Gavin Howley, an early participant in Writers for Recovery and a close personal friend. Since then, I’ve heard from a number of the people who knew and loved Gavin, both online and by phone. They all shared how much they loved him, and talked about his impact on their lives. So I thought I’d add my own to the pot, because I loved him too, and because he’s a guy worth remembering.

I met Gavin in July 2014, at the first Writers for Recovery workshop at the old Turning Point on Bank Street in Burlington. Even six years later, I have fond memories of that group and the amazing people who were part of it: Stan Worthley, Caitlin and Sarah Ferland, John and Jack Gower, Leslie Bonnette, Patti Garvey, and a bunch of great other folks. That first group literally went on for years, with and without those folks and including many more. It had a huge impact on my life, and for that I am most grateful.

I’m not sure how Gavin found out about WFR, or why he showed up. I recall him saying “my therapist made me,” but it could be that I am making that up. In any case, he put his stamp on the workshop right away. Later, I would find out he was a great musician. (If you haven’t seen his version of Alison, check it out above, before the copyright team at YouTube finds it and takes it down.) But before I heard his music, I read his words. From his harrowing (and surprisingly funny) early piece “Why I Really Went to Jail,” I learned two important things that I would carry throughout my time with WFR.

First, I discovered what could happen when a writer was brave enough to tell the truth without holding back. When Gavin read the piece out loud, we were all just stunned. And it wasn’t only us. I posted the piece on the WFR blog, and for the following six years, it has been the single most read post we’ve ever published. I told Gavin that once, and he mumbled something snarky, probably about not deserving it, but he did deserve it. Because the piece is unreal, as you can see for yourself.

Second, I learned that not everyone who struggles with substances and mental health issues looks like they struggle. Ever-casual in slacks and a dress shirt, Gavin was warm, friendly, funny, and cool. But when he started reading that first piece, I realized there was so much more below the surface, including courage and deep-seated pain.

I liked Gavin from the get-go, and after he asked me to give him a ride home to South Burlington one night, we became friends. I told him I’d be glad to give him a ride if he was willing to stop by Trader Joe’s with me on the way. He agreed, and soon we were wandering the aisles, chatting and cracking jokes like old friends. If I recall correctly, he grabbed some kind of wacky combo juice, Pomegranate-Hemp or something equally odd, which became the first of one of many of our long-running jokes.

Over the years, we grew closer. I’d drive up to Burlington for some errands and meet him for a 5 Guys burger or some Gaku Ramen and an afternoon or evening of wandering Church Street, poking around in the shops and looking for a suitable and fairly-priced pair of pants, which Gavin had an idea might be at LLBean. (As far as I know, he never did find them.) Then I’d give him a lift back to SoBu, as he always referred to his home town, and we’d agree to do it again.

Sometime after Gavin’s dad Jim died in 2017, Gavin, his mom Kathleen, and his sister Laura came to Montpelier to spread some of the ashes at Hubbard Park, which Jim loved. We had a nice lunch on the back porch at Deb’s and my house. And Gavin came along with me for Deb’s standup comedy debut at the Vermont Comedy Club, where he got to meet some of my other friends. Now, of course, I am regretting that I didn’t see him more in person. But that was only part of our relationship.

I’m not really much of a texter; I do it for convenience and minimally. But in the past few years, I texted with Gavin almost daily. While our in-person talks often focused on serious topics—how Gavin was doing in his recovery, how his work was going, his difficulty being social and getting himself out in the world, the texts were 99% humor. To know Gavin was to know his wit, which while often self-effacing, turned its sights like a Death Star laser beam on the hypocrisy and inanity of American life in general and Burlington (and SoBu) life in particular.

On any given day, we might riff on the fact that the SoBu Public Library is in a shopping mall, dissect the grammar missteps of the junk email Gavin got from Nataliya, the stunning Russian sexpot who was dying to meet “Real American Man,” or mock the overblown guitar stylings of blues guitar god Joe Bonamassa (or, as we referred to him, Joe Massive Boner or just BM). In fact, we developed a whole sideline story that Gavin’s uncle, a jazz pianist who in real life despised the Boner, was actually the president of the BM fan club. And there was more, in an endless stream of humor aimed at everything from corporate-speak to “clean” food, “unboxing” videos to our level of manliness, or lack therof.

But nothing, absolutely nothing, topped the amount of time we spent ragging on YETI, the manufacturer of the coolers you need a bank loan or a trust fund to afford. It all started one evening in LLBean, where I had gone to buy some fly fishing gear and Gavin had made another unsuccessful soiree to the pants rack. As we were leaving, we paused at the YETI display, where $300 coolers were there for the asking.

“Jesus,” I said. “I can’t believe anyone could be stupid enough to pay that much for a fucking cooler.”

And that’s when we realized an LLBean staffer was lurking behind us.

“That’s because they’re THE BEST,” he said, trying and failing to tamp down his irritation. Then he stalked away.

“THE BEST,” Gavin mused, and then we both started laughing. That was all it took. In text and in person, any time a product of any kind was mentioned, YETI and THE BEST came along for the ride. It might start innocently enough, with a text by Gavin asking if I knew where he could get THE BEST sandwich or something, and we would be off for a stream of bad jokes, worse puns, and general hilarity no one would care about but us. But here’s the thing: underneath it all, Gavin was hurting.

Occasionally, he would go off radar for a while, which corresponded with a relapse, and the deep anger and shame he felt about going back to that place again. Then I’d get a text, or see him in person, and he’d own all of it with complete honesty and start over. He never blamed anyone but himself, which he did without kid gloves. He’d go back to meetings, connect with a sponsor, and try again.

Just before he died, Gavin hit a year sober. I can’t remember him doing that long a stretch in the time I have known him, but it’s possible he did. While he was open in talking about his difficulty with sobriety, he pushed back on any effort to go too deep. Which was fine. I didn’t hang with him because I wanted to solve Gavin’s problems, I showed up because I loved him. He was smart, funny, cantankerous and skeptical, talented, humble, and cool, even if he didn’t believe it. I’m so sad that he made the choice to leave us. The world is now a lesser place.   

Feel free to share your memories of Gavin here. Thanks for reading. Gary

THE BEST

Once you start going to meetings, finding a sponsor, start working the steps, things will get better. You'll find a new sense of freedom, freedom from the restraining effect drugs and alcohol had on you. It won't be easy, but it'll be worth it. I can't tell you how to work your own program but take my advice, work it to the best of your ability. Reach out if you're struggling, people WILL pick up the phone. Get those numbers from people in meetings. Call me, fuck it. I don't care what time it is, 4pm or 4am. People have and I pick up the phone. Because I was there. I needed help. And people talked me through it. There will be days you wanna drink or use but you don't have to. You don't have to go back to the hell you were dragging yourself through. Just take it one day at a time. No matter what happens in your day, you get fired from your job, break your arm, your girlfriend leaves you, car breaks down, etc, as long as you don't pick up a drink or drug your day is a complete success. The program works if you work it. If you can stop drinking or drugging without the help of AA or NA, that's great, more power to you. But I'll guarantee you won't make the personal changes needed to be a completely different person. By working the program you open yourself up to a whole new way of living life. I can't tell you what will work for you but I can tell you what WON'T work. Just take my advice.

VISTA’s innovative texting platform, Messages for Me, aims to build individuals’ recovery resources, one day at a time. Since November of 2019, Messages for Me has provided over 100 individuals in recovery with scheduled text messages that build self-worth and provide support. Now revamped in response to COVID-19, the program sends five weekly messages about coping during COVID-19, nurturing recovery, and maintaining connections. It provides a constant sense of connection through isolation and cultivates recovery during a time when many people are vulnerable to relapse.

Recovery can be difficult, but signing up for Messages for me isn’t. To subscribe, text “START” to 802 548-1024. Enrollment is ongoing and new users are welcomed at any time.

Robyn Joy is a long-time WFR participant, and her work has appeared frequently on our blog. Here, she shares three recent poems. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did. Thanks, Robyn!

HERE’S WHERE I’M AT RIGHT NOW

I’m listening – humbly.

            I’m sharing what I learn and what I know as I go

            in an attempt to be of service without getting it wrong.

There are so many abundant trees though

 and I don’t know which apple to choose 

How I am

What I am eating

What my cat is doing

How my family’s health is

  all of this is perhaps less significant

            but still continuing

            while moms are screaming for the loss of their babies

            to another act of violence 

            that I don’t even know how to talk about

And I am scared too

How much more can I absorb before I shut down?

How can I be a good student

            and a good ally

            and a good caretaker

            all at once?

Maybe it is just a matter of adaptability.

June 3, 2020

IT WASN'T MY FIRST CHOICE

It wasn't my first choice, 

to be so weird and awkward.

In fact, I tried to exorcise out the weird

 in a series of rites and passages -

  candles lit

  effigies burned.

But there I was

 every. single. time.

Silencing lively conversations,

with an odd observation,

 trying to like something that was normal

  but not really getting it.

In adolescence, I guess this didn't hold true.

"Weird" was a badge to be earned.

But the ones I was mirroring

had more clout than I could ever hope for,

which arguably made me 

the actual weirdo in this equation,

and the so called "weirdos" the normies,

depending on your perspective.

It's boring isn't it?

Placating to an idea 

rather than having our own.

Even as a real live adult,

I still fall into that dull hole sometimes.

So mundane I might just 

lay around in it for days 

before I realize where I am.

But the candles from the rituals still burn 

and if I squint, 

I can still see the effigy's flicker.

June 10, 2020

WHAT IF I’M WRONG

What if I’m wrong

   and what I just said makes the world explode?

   Or what if it implodes instead?

Which hurts more?

What if I make the wrong choice,

and then you stop loving me?

  Or you keep on loving me, 

because that’s the right thing to do,

but you secretly dislike me from now on?

What if I find out in five years

   that the very reasonable seeming decision I just made

    put my life on a trajectory far away

     from what I wanted, 

      and I can never get back

       to being comfortable and stable?

What if I am wrong about what comfort and stability are,

  and I have been wrong this whole time?

And what if finally making the RIGHT choice 

  would bring me to that place

   where everything releases 

    and I say with a big sigh

     “Oh! I get it now!”

      but because I have been 

      making a string of wrong decisions,

I will never really know what that is like?

Or what if..

  What if I DID know what it felt like

    but I wasn’t paying attention 

     and I missed it

     and now I don’t even have a chance?

Or what if it isn’t even up to me,

 and my choices are a lark,

  and it’s all going to unfold how it wants to anyway?

What if I let go of whether or not I am wrong,

  and let others be right?

June 10, 2020

All recovery begins with an honest acknowledgment that a problem exists. In The United States, systemic racism and police brutality have over the past 450 years resulted in the murder of, denigration of, and denial of justice for millions of African Americans, Indigenous People, and People of Color. The racist murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery tragically illustrate how systemic racism in the United States destroys families and communities and condemns millions of Americans to lives of pain, fear, and suffering. Writers for Recovery stands in solidarity with people across America and around the world who condemn these racist murders and demand the immediate reform of our policing and justice systems to eliminate systemic racism and police brutality and deliver true justice for BIPOC. As an organization, we pledge to increase our outreach to people of color and provide more opportunities for them to participate in WFR. And we will rededicate ourselves to our work within communities and corrections facilities to amplify those voices that have too long been denied an audience. Black Lives Matter, and the time for change is now.

The universe made a motion and rolled away. The mass and matter surrounded the void and leaned in to listen. The cries and moans filled its ears, and the sight which sees all swept around to see the burning cities and the burning planet and the sorrows that drowned all. “Here’s what I heard,” it would say to the other universes if they listened. “I heard the cries for justice that grew louder and louder still. I heard the tears cried in darkness and solitude. I heard the gunfire and the bombs and the breaking windows. I heard the collective voices, and the rasping breaths. I heard the lies and the truth, all mixed together. I heard the silence and I heard the shouts. I heard the living and I heard the dying; I heard the young and old. I heard the oppressed, and I heard the oppressors. I heard all these mixed and varied things. The sound it reverberates and echoes and bounces off the walls of the sky, looking for a place to land.” The universe swirled and swayed, spinning around to hear all of this and impress upon all the other universes the varied sounds of sorrow.

We had a fantastic session of our Middlebury Zoom group on Wednesday. Here are four amazing pieces contributed by Johny, Jackie, Nellie, and Peter. I hope you enjoy them!

The Lilacs Were Starting to Bloom

by Johny Widell

The lilacs were starting

to bloom, and that meant we were

fully into Spring.

In a few weeks, we'd be planting the garden.

The apple blossoms would come out any day 

and the orchard behind the house would become

a sea of white.

In no time

white petals would fly 

and soon

corn would be high and green.

Soon

leaves would begin to change and apples

(did I ever see them green?)

would be red and yellow ripe and falling from the trees.

The leaves, 

the leaves red and orange and yellow flying on the breeze.

I would feel that first breath of winter,

shortened days, the smell of chill

on the night air,

bitter cold and snow blowing 

against my face and neck,

all the branches except a scattering of

golden leaved oaks,

turned to sticks,

gray sticks

cold against the gray white sky.

Now I see these first blooms of lilacs, 

soft purple in a vase on the altar

with deep purple tulips

behind the names of the dead.

“The Lilacs Were Starting to Bloom”

by Jackie Joy

The lilacs were starting to bloom, and I knew I would make it.

Lilacs - my favorite scent next to fresh cut grass.

The winter has surely passed, and summer is around the bend.

River time is prime time, and I indulge frequently.

Yesterday, with Violet - 8

Today, with Amaryllis - 3

These two Angels are introducing me to a childhood I never had.

ACA is introducing me to the childhood I did have and have successfully blocked out.

I stumbled across In The Rooms and Hurrah!!!!

I found not only CoDA, but also the crème de la crème ACA.

I always thought I was an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. 

When someone introduced themselves as an Adult Child, it hit me.

I’m an Adult Child.

I am an Adult Child.

That statement floored me and fit me to a T.

I am an Adult Child.

“We Agnostics” in Bucharest

by Nellie W.

Gabi spends time with young females with flower names:

Violet, Amaryllis, Lily, Rose, and the two Lilacs.

They would amble down rivers on rafts, inner tubes and inner turmoil

Lightness and giggles being met with every buffet

Magic-described summers without sounding cloying

The ones where one can only think childhood thoughts:

Candy is most exciting, followed by horses, dried meat, sausage

Sock feet inside the apartment, bare feet outside

Memorizing the dimensions of the shared bedroom

Drawing the schematics of the escape routes,

Boxes and blocks as best toys

Then the Ceaucescu regime crashed their friendship

Gabi could no longer learn from children

Rose gushed about the presidential scepter

Amaryllis praised everything--she was an artist after all

Violet, a Hungarian, hated violence,  and Operation Danube.  She gushed with happiness.

Lily’s Jewish father’s language acumen allowed him to rise in the party and newspaper

Knowing English, they may have called her “Sue”, or ‘Shula’ with Hebrew affectation.

That would have been worse!  Even though a cousin had made aliya and moved to Israel 

Lily was the romanized and Romanian-ized version.

She wanted to be a part.  Not a sticky-out part like her proboscis.

It was clear: God was the problem.

So Lily got hold of a gun.  

Lily took the machine gun, in her eight-year-old grip,

Pointed it at the sky, 

and killed God.

Her hatred, her intolerance, her political drive 

Ripened that summer 

They created her

They and those Romanian flower girls who had it so easy.

It was all a foundry: molten metal poured into her 

childhood shaped mould, and hardened. 

God was the problem and Lily killed God

But the twin stars of gossip, the Lilacs

They were becoming obsessed with their sameness.

Learning to listen and report.

“The nail that sticks out gets the hammer”

“Life is shit.”

“We’ll have the party look into your record.”

The lilacs were beginning to bloom.

“The Lilacs Are Starting to Bloom”

by Peter Fried

The lilacs are starting to bloom.

But who cares, honestly?

I mean, did they have lilacs at Buchenwald,

Treblinka, Auschwitz, Chelmno, Sobibor Theresienstadt?

I don’t know. May be they did.

May be they were just outside the wire,

Hanging languidly.

Laden with triumph, oozing with nectar

Ready to bestow some kind of bliss

Upon the suspecting lips of an inmate-

With one ’n’, not two.

Ensconced, buried, held- hellbent

Behind the juicy wire

Waiting with barbed hostility

To toast the next muselmann

Or fear ridden UPS driver

Or her forties equivalent.

You can be my salesperson,

My cashier. My sheer belly dancer.

Tonight. Isabell. Are-a-bell.

What the hell. Who can tell.

Just taste the rust, and maple syrup

On the tip of this Bohemian-

Manufactured bayonet.

The stealth formation of

Stealth formations. Ready to right

The wrong of yesteryear.

Yah Yah Yah

Up the ladder with the jews.

Down the well, and into the loft.

Who cares? God Almighty,

Who cares anymore?

Your pen will run dry.

Your pencil will break,

But you can still awake.

Joe-you can still awake.

Just don’t make contact

With the aquifer of grief

Anytime soon.

Not too soon,

Please.

Text

REMOVE

Lilacs just outside my door.

Image

EDIT

REMOVE

MAY 29, 2020

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 © 2017 Writers for Recovery

Editing ‘"The Lilacs Were Starting to Bloom" by Johny Widell, Jackie Joy, Nelly W., and Peter Fried’

In this time of COVID, many artists are finding time to do something they love. One of those folks is Maura Quinn. She’s been part of Writers for Recovery for a long time, and is helping to keep a group going in Barre, VT during the quarantine time. I think you’ll really love her work. Thanks for sharing, Maura!

---

“The Difference Is”

by Maura Quinn

I'm struggling, between caring, and wanting to scream!

The difference is I don’t want to think I never had any control over which thing I do.

Then I THINK.

Anyway, how I was then...is not how I am now.

I am not that person. 

Doubt speaks- 'Or am I?'

I desire to help others find and use their gifts. Empower them! Why do I desire this?

Is it born from my own experience of neglect?

Is it because I feel powerless at this time?

I see you. You have already shown your strength.

 Am I lying to myself about that?

A benign denial

Because it is too awful.

Too ugly.

Too unjust.

To honestly and powerfully wish it had never happened. 

 Am I in the present; processing?

And do I find too much judgement?

I've BEEN judged. I KNOW the mindset.

And I throw it off like a blanket, or some iron-curtain of cruelty.

Oh! Is there nothing there?

Am I guilty of innocence?

---

“Everyone Wore Masks”

by Maura Quinn

And we stood six feet away. For some of us we just waved through the window of the house or car. I took to calling out “hello fellow humans” when I saw people. I even saw a face in the clouds wearing a mask. My wife and I had loads of fun trying to fashion masks out of Under Armour underwear. It looked like we were wearing burkas and it made me wonder what it would be like to do that all of the time. There is a certain solidarity when everyone is wearing a mask. Despite the distance, the shared bizarre experience that is life today ties us together. Political philosophy that requires everyone to have health care is sharply focused. The weakest link can kill you. It is not the deprivation of wartime with bombing and refugees. But inequity perhaps is coming into clearer focus.

---

“I Was Trying to Explain,”

by Maura Quinn

How I felt about this strange new world we exist in, to a friend today. Here we are, just being us. And a world responding to a pandemic descends. Everything, well ok, yes everything is different. And a bit confoundingly still the same. I’m breathing. I go to sleep. Wake up. I eat. I see and I feel but it is different because the world is having this very distinct collective experience. I know that this actually happens every day but to be so aware of it and to have such strange circumstances. Wear a mask. Disinfect everything. Don’t get too close. But I want to get close, I want the comfort of others and I get that. But from a distance now. On Zoom. Virtual comfort. And yet everything is so beautiful. So vibrant. Spring is still coming and the trees are budding. We are the odd man out.

They were loud,

Loud enough to be heard a mile away.

They screamed.

They bellowed.

They shook the rafters.

They rattled the windows and

Rolled the nails.

They made everyone in town put their

Hands over their ears and

Roll in pain.  

They drowned out the bird songs, the baby cries, 

The big trucks on the wet highway,

The lawn mowers, the leaf blowers,

The Harley Davidsons, the second line trumpets, the Grateful Dead with both drummers,

The horns that brought down the walls of Jericho,

The wails of a hundred sirens,

The screams of ten thousand banshees.

And with a breath,

I turned them down.   

“There!”  I said it.  

I made the place by speaking it

I made it there.

I said of all of its coppices and dales and other landmarks like ‘berms’ and ‘riparian barriers’

whose meaning  I never bothered to look up, but could speak into being.  

I said its cornices, its ballasts, its transoms, its cupolas 

I said its spires, turrets, and onion domes, 

although I’m sure I used the proper word* for those when I said it

I said its paint colours, and traced its wallpaper patterns with my in-breaths

I said its furniture: 

its davenports, duvet covers, hutches, armoires, Louis XVI, ‘Louie Says’

I took out the bar, the house-warmed, conspicuous-consumption bottles atop the fridge, 

the vodka vases at the verdant triptych-scene bay window 

I said the cushions, the ottomans, ottomen? 

The parlour talk-therapy chaise lounge, ‘chase long’ 

I said this meticulous there and I made it the place 

where I could be my grown-ass, sober, self.

I spoke it into being like a reverse  memory palace where the object fixes before the word,

proliferating like a crystal growing kit I somehow got from a comic book

near the picture of the grinning seamonkey family with the trident 

though the ads were decades old 

by the time I could read and long to send away for my x-ray specs 

I said “There!”, so I made it,

I identified it, so it could be mine.

So that someday soon I could host and entertain.

Let me assure you it was squalor, derelict, and nearly abandoned  before the remodeling.  

The silent 98-pound weakling thought, if quiet enough, 

pearls would form in her tear ducts from all the sand kicked  in her face.

I think it’s almost ready to open soon.

Would you like to meet me?

Would you meet me here?

*луковичная глава, lúkovichnaya glavá

It was colder than usual. Much colder actually. I was sitting in my favorite spot, right by the heater and far from the window. “Always cold” my wife would say, “cold and paranoid”, God she could push my buttons. Anyway, it was 70 degrees out, and 72 indoors according to the thermostat. I felt the goose pimples and I swear I even saw my breath briefly.
My thoughts went right to Max. Maybe he was in the room with me? You know how all those nutty psychics say the room gets cold when a ghost enters the room or some shit like that. I was in so much pain for so long that I would believe just about anything. Anything that would mean he was ok.
I stood up from my chair and grabbed the throw from the couch, wrapped it around myself. I looked around the room, behind the couch and behind the TV.
Nothing. Just like how i felt about my life, Nothing. Ive got a 2 bedroom apartment at 78 yrs old, a wife who cant stand me and the only one who loved me just died.
Max was an Amazing cat. He would look up with hopeful eyes anytime I made a noise. Making sure I wasn’t getting up and if I did, so did he. Only if he was really tired would he stay in place and talk to me as I told him it was time to move. “Let’s go stinky pants”, “meooow”. “Come on now lazy bones”. Max would squint his eyes and yawn, Loosing interest, or feigning loosing interest, as I knew he would soon give in and follow. I would go downstairs to the bedroom and hear my wife say “He’s staring at the stairs, making sure you’re not coming back up. I swear that cat is just like a dog.”
Rarely would I come and get him, knowing I would never sleep without him. Tears spilled out as I remembered how much comfort Max would bring me, and I remembered that he wasn’t coming back. I made a quiet tisking sound as I walked around the room, aware that if my wife heard me I would never hear the end of it. “Now I’m calling the white coats Charlie, you know hallucination is a sign of the crazies”. God I hate that bitch!
Max never judged me. Never said a word and that’s just the way I liked it. He just sat there and listened. He’d squint his eyes and begin to purr, like he knew it was time help me process. I read once that the vibrations from purring would help an injured cat heal if it was hurt. Well I think Max healed me all the time. When I would meditate he would sit at my feet like he needed whatever energy I was drawing in. I remember the first time I meditated and when I opened my eyes Max was sitting right up close to my face. I thought he was just confused about what I was doing but the more I thought about it I figure he was probably thinking something like ”its about time, Dummy”.
Cats are the most spiritual beings I ever met, and if anything is making it to the other side its them. I believe that to my core.
I went back to my chair and wiped away the tears, wondering how many tears a human could actually make before dehydration killed them. Oh Max, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to go on?
I hadn’t meditated since his death , hadn’t even thought of it really. But now I did, like it was planted in my head, kinda weird like. Like when you smell something and it brings up a childhood memory, or you have deja vu. Anyway i closed my eyes and began my mantra, letting the thoughts of Max come and go, wrapping the blanket closer but feeling no warmer.
All of a sudden I felt a vibration go through my arms, not like the tingling I’ve felt many times before in meditation but a vibration kinda like a purr. It got stronger with my inhales and weaker as i breathed out. I knew it was him, had to be. I let the tears fall, tears of joy that pooled over my lips and fell in my lap. My lap that Max used to love. The vibrations began to warm my body and i felt like he was here with me. Really Here With Me.
I slowly loosened the blanket, becoming too warm but not opening my eyes as I was afraid the vibrations would cease. My mantra became a resounding Thank you, thank you ,thank you , thank you.
All I remember after that was my wife coming in the room and saying “boy, I guess you were tired”, “you slept 2 hrs Charlie”.
I woke feeling like a new man. Like i could even take a walk or listen to the wife without wanting to leave the room as soon as humanly possible.
I don’t know what that was that day nor do I want to try to figure it out. But what I do know is that I am never alone, especially when I feel I will die from loneliness. Max is with me, and I will continue to meditate, I’m sure he’d want me to. That meditation saved my life.

Dishes are shattering, Mom and Dad are screaming and you tremble in a dark bedroom.

Eyes that once to smile are betrayed, ties frayed and only a mortally wounded heart remains.

Addiction and heartbreak have a high rate of comorbidity .

Steps that became lighter with proximity now about face with curt avoidance.

No one pushed you here, in the cold, looking in.

Blaming at no fault of my own is always easier than admitting, that it's no one's fault,

But my own.

Every planet in the solar system has been bombarded with self righteous and indignant asteroids.

The stars made them do it.

Many of these violent eruptions are seared into me. But I wasn't turned to ash while I incinerated your world. Well, maybe just a corner of your globe. . . or maybe not.

I can't fix the dishes. I can't relight the pilot light of your eyes, I've already used my last match. I won't call after you, apologies don't carry in a vacuum.

And all the planets and all the stars and all the asteroids know that once you disfigure a celestial body,

There is no going back.

When Spring finally comes, I am feeling acclimated to the winter air. I find myself leaving behind the heavy sweaters in favor of layers. I'm becoming a Vermonter. Utilitarian is my primary focus now. Fashion has taken a backseat. I'm walking to the river in my boots, hoodie, and down jacket enjoying the brisk air, the rushing water and the smell of winter dust in my nostrils. After climbing the hills and sitting on my favorite rock, I wonder. What's next? Spring used to mean running outside with all of Bristol happy and smiling. There are very few walking now. And they are not smiling. They are crossing the street in fear. Do you have it? Do I have it? And if I do, am I at peace? Have I cleaned up everything that needs cleaning up? Have I noticed that things that used to be urgent are not even relevant now? Have I been preparing for this my entire life? Yes, I think I have.