Given the prompt, here, the subtitle, you get seven minutes to write whatever. There are five sequential pieces, unedited, hence 35 minutes. The Epilogue is just what couldn’t come out in time.

35 Days in 35 Minutes

– 1 –

The Light is Getting Brighter

12/22/20

Fall is my favorite time, leaves change, time changes, decay of matter, decay of time. I’ve always lived in this time, this season, this mood, maroon. Marooned in the melancholy of autumn.

The snow comes, it goes, so what, who cares? Well, all those that forsake a New England upbringing and clog Florida. Me care? Not really. Snow is an inconvenience, a necessity, an essential cycle.

Years ago, at the cabin of my college literature professor (we were only friends, though he may have had other aspirations). Charles said to me in the middle of the night, “Let’s go for a snowshoe!” in his marble-filled mouth voice. So we did. It was cloudy and feet of snow were on the ground.

We walked through an old lane lined with magnificent sugar maples. The scene was lit by a strange residual light in the snow – like light trapped.

I asked myself a strange question. ‘If there are fairies here, I wonder how I’d know.’ And just then balls of fire like Roman candles shot over our heads. Charles exclaimed, “What was that?!” And I said, “Don’t worry. I know.

– 2 –

In the Middle of It All

12/29/20

There’s a fall, that happens in the middle of it all, when you think you’ve got it figured out. And then, the out, the rout, the pout, then wow.

In the middle of it all, you can fall from tree top to dell, from crown, knowledge, to hell.

Gravity takes us all, sometimes to the bottom of the well, where we drink from old things, dead things, like a dead snake that fell in there. Or the piece of ice I ate on a walk yesterday that tasted of snow, that minerally bite of carbon dioxide trapped in ice.

In the middle of it all, I realize there’s no start or end, just complexity and purgatory. That’s my lot in life, living in the middle of it all, and wanting an end, a completion, a moment that isn’t in the middle.

– 3 –

That Wasn’t the End of It

1/5/21

Postponement derangement self-flagulation mutilation distortion – me. When there was a time, a clarity, a purpose – so much to do, so much done. Shame, self-doubt, embarrassment. Why do I return to these? ‘Cause coffee and vitamins only take you so far.

Neighbor Dave called me this morning, only more hermit-ish person I know than me. We shared video links of inspirational speakers who seem to have beaten this disease. They might have. We haven’t. He mentioned “Covid winter.” A new phrase for a new phase. I asked the docs if there was a honeymoon period in sobriety. No one admitted to it, ‘cause they knew all too well, there was, and then the mighty fall that is all too inevitable. Should they have told me the truth?

Lapse, relapse, prolapse, collapse.

At least I have help coming and advice, because the last thing you EVER want to do is go back to the ER and tremble and get jacked up on saline solution and anti this and anti that meds.

If it was the end of it, then, well, the cemetery. But we’ve got friends and helpers, maybe even family, for some people. The statistics, the experts, the nauseating facts. But we have hands and feet and stand back up and right our gyroscope and set a course and go forth to those things that make sense and don’t pause or look askance at things that aren’t part of the solution, the mind pollution that drives us mad with brain chemistry, bad reactions, exothermic or entropy.

Getting up is how we assure it’s not the end of it.

– 4 –

Let Me Show You

1/12/21

How do we learn, how do we learn to be smart or wise or loved? Learn to make a worthwhile garden, a household, a pot of tea, be considerate or mean, be gracious or violent?

Nature or nurture and hence the conversation is about nurture – a beautiful way to absorb all of life’s negative messages, of ego, avarice, malice, nurtured into a soldier’s uniform, nurtured into a life of crime, and at first, learn to drink or smoke or inhale a whippet?

You know the answer – from each other, from heroes and the powerful, and from the desperate. It’s true what they say about misery. Like begets like. And the contrary, all this is all true – that beauty begets beauty, love returns love, and politeness and discourse, and I want to be shown, like those who care for me and show me empathy by example.

– 5 –

I’m Looking into It

1/19/21

There are things in life we ignore. I always think about the root word of ignorance: ignore. We think to claim ignorance is a fair excuse that something happened out of our control, but no, it happened because we ourselves ignored. Have to learn to own up, bone up, be a grownup.

Somewhere between 40 years ago and just now I began to own my ignoring, passing off, putting off, showing off, delaying, denying where I had found – no – put myself. Like a snowboarder who’s broken so many bones that one day they wake and know they’re done, that they need to stop and find something more… suitable.

That “snap” of bones or spirit or agility, ability, fragility is when ignorance ends. It isn’t fun. It is watershed change in your watery eyes, when you look into the mirror and see, truly see into your foibles, habits and self-told lies and you see something honest about yourself and look into it.

– EPILOGUE –

1/20/21

My Dad said, “It takes two to tango.” Mine is “I try everything twice,” reasoning that, you know, on any given day it might not be great, so try it again. Twice might keep you from making a snap judgment. Twice might let you find something out… about yourself.

I’ve been bitten by vicious dogs twice in my life.

I’ve caught girlfriends with other men twice. Embarrassing for me, emboldening for the hims. You question yourself.

I’ve been rescued from almost drowning twice, once by a sister, the other by the neighborhood bully. Well, three times really, if you count the time I was snorkeling well off by myself, off the shore of Isla de Mujeres in Mexico. But no one was there to rescue me that time – life threatening, swallowing seawater, caught in currents, my corpse would have been washed out to sea and no one would ever have known what happened to me. Lucky to be here, or am I?

I’ve eaten uni twice and never got the hang of it. Looks like baby shit and tastes like salty mud.

I’ve eaten natto twice, the nastiest looking fermented food ever, tan soybeans caught in a mucilaginous, stringy, rubber cement kind of, dunno, some kind of microorganism. The first time I hurled, but… since I try everything twice, and I really do try to live up to that aphorism, I went back, found it from a different producer, and… wow! Those are some goooood rubber cement beans!

I’ve been through alcohol detox twice. Once in the hospital, then next time, on my own, alone with my own tormented soul without whatever it is they give you to shutter the shudders. A single room hall of horrors, where, by design I put myself there and then had only myself to find my way out of the maze. Not exactly true, I have understanding friends, and a daughter, and a particular sister, and a cell phone. Before I did this thing, I made arrangements. “If I run into trouble, I’m going to call you guys, and maybe one of you can take me to the hospital.” Roger agreed. His adult twin brothers are recovering alcoholics, something like, since 1984. He matter-of-factly told me it takes a couple times, but “You’ll get it, man.” He’s a kinda famous punk rocker from the eighties. He can have a couple of beers and he’s good. Not me. I’m wondering if a couple of times through this hell will be enough to teach me.

I was told by a doc, I am in the deep end of the pool. But a pool is a pool. It’s all the same except it’s deeper on one end. My pool is like that beach in Mexico. You could walk out and keep walking and the sand was soft and water just got incrementally deeper and the sun was blazing and the water felt good. But there comes a point where the waves lap up to your face and a few more steps and there’s no bottom and the current is persuasive and the clarity is gone and seaweed and sea creatures wash upon you and you think “I got this.” Do I?

My second time, for two days I could barely walk. Fuck! I could barely stand up. My hands trembled so violently I could not type. It took both hands for a glass of water. I forced myself to drink water and eat something, a slice of bread, and take vitamins and pills.

I heard songs repeating in my head for the two days and nights. “Why the fuck is Camptown Races playing over and over and over?” “What dark shit is in your brain that THAT is what bubbles up?”

For two hours it was an ancient refrain from some long obliterated monastery. For two hours I heard a folk song in some Eastern European tongue. For a while it was some electronic dance beat. That part was okay.

You should have seen me, walking around putting my ear to every speaker or computer to see which was emitting faint tunes, reasoning a short circuit or the fillings in my teeth, or soundwaves caught in the wind suddenly falling out of the sky, like a kite in dead air.

I chased the sound into a corner and put my ear there, my left ear, that’s where the sound was coming in, and put that ear to the corner and… nothing.

When I was a young man, I knew this guy who would lumber about and put the palms of his hands on the sides of his head and push. He was so unhappy. He asked me if I ever felt my head would explode, or if I felt like there was a hole in my head and brains were leaking out. I chalked it up to one too many acid trips, but it is a real thing, the exploding head thing. It has a diagnosis and everything.

By Wednesday, I walked outside and became convinced the treetops were crowded with a cacophony of tree frogs chirping as loud as a murmuration of starlings. It was winter, no tree frogs.

So for the next two days I heard bird songs. Summer songs in winter. That was the moment… did I have a stroke? Have I uncovered a hidden schizoid state? Am I a psychopath now?

I’d wake up from dreams so lucid they were in four dimensions, wake up during some discourse only to find myself speaking outloud and continuing the conversation with someone in the dream. I was caught between two realities: the dream state and the conscious state. Or was it the descent state versus the intent state? Or was it all one in the same – the specters I long ago planted in the creases of my brain, wriggling free like nightcrawlers after a storm, to remind me my universe is still almost entirely unknown to me? I would have written things down, but I could barely hold a pen.

Shit like that will drive you to empathize with people who hear voices all the time. Our stereotype of the town drunk, whiskered, gaunt, stumbling, mumbling, trembling, asking for a little something. I’ve now been inside him.

On the sixth day the sound hallucinations stopped. Just tinitis, lingering, like when you flush the toilet and the refill is still shitty.

It took two more days for me to begin to feel normalish, in my own skin again. The old Matt. The me who was the most awesome teenager, before dope and alcohol and bad sexual experiences and college knee injuries and marriage fucked me up, meaning, before I allowed them to. Because I didn’t know any better. Oh Big Sandy, sing it, “If I knew now, what I knew then.”

Today, at 2 pm, I went for a constitutional swim at the Y. It isn’t really a swim – it is a maximum of six old farts, each relegated to a portion of the pool so we don’t get the plague upon each other. My corner is in the deep end of the pool.

Remember the near drowning episodes? In a Herculean effort entirely of my own design, I took a swimming class. Still don’t know how anyone relaxes when you’re about to go under, but I did it, then I did it again. Now I am comfortable with just floating on my back, my knees bending some, so that my feet are below the water. I inhale deeply and bob up to the surface. I exhale and I sink. I sink until just my nose and eyes are above water, but it is enough. I have had to learn it is enough, and that if I struggle, I can’t maintain the delicate balance between bob up and just survive.

I listen to my breathing. I am comfortable, for now, with the idea that I am doing something impossible. Floating where before I sank. Swimming where before I flailed. I think of the pool water around me versus the solvent that was inside me.

I begin to let go, let go of worry, my surroundings. Transfixed on the square ceiling tiles, each with hundreds of perfectly organized little divots. Bob up, sink down a little. Bob up, sink down a little. Bob up, disappear, sink down a little, reappear.

I am aware of the ceiling and the water and my breathing. Nothing else is here. I feel as if I’m on a ceiling looking down at a tiled floor. My whole world is upside down. I’m loosely attached to a liquid ceiling, floating above everything. Seeing things differently and feeling things differently. How long can I remain here? Is this the destination? Or am to stay here for a couple of hours, a couple of days until whatever is next.

Tune in. Two-n-in. 

Let me show you how it is to live life today.  

I am in the business of making my world bigger while those who hate on me on whats app groups wither into obscurity.  

Stick around and let me show you that 

I am tolerant, 

and sex positive, 

and a good resource-- It feels cringy to tell you such.  

Let me show you my town

and my apartment and 

my collections.  At one point it was wine, at a point before that it was international sugar packets, and at various points ashtrays, or Tim Horton’s coffee cups.  Does that not tell the time or what?

Let me show you I’ve picked up, although I am still mess I am getting better, I could help you too, 

Let me show you how you can help me not just if

Let me show you that there are diamond facets to my personalities and synonyms for everything although I am choosing choice moments and not always full of bon mots.  

Let me show you what acceptance looks like. 

Look into my eyes. 

How could you possibly want violence on me? 

Let me show you what it looks like to love you fearlessly.  Let me show you how you may do it for yourself, 

because in that moment, 

when it turned midnight, 

and we were on the the Zoom and 

the phone and on 

the youtube, and in one another’s 

respective towns and 

balconies and 

windows and we were 

blowing kisses and publicly 

belly laughing, and I felt 

something, and I am just starting to know my feelings as beautiful and 

corollary to other times, 

I began feeling, and I don’t know 

how to express it with words, so let me show you.

The reality was staring me in the face. It was so clear and crisp that I could feel it and taste it. My marriage was crumbling. The fights were more frequent and more vicious. The times when we got along diminished to the point that they felt like brief respites to reload, and nothing more, before returning to battle.

I drank to relax. I drank to unwind. I drank to bolster myself for the dysfunction on the homefront. I drank to tolerate that which had become my existence.

My wife was a nag, and I was never good enough. Sure, my temper, my anxiety - they played a part. There was so much destruction that there was plenty of blame to go around. The relationship was dissolving, because we were running out of glue to hold it together.

The drinking eased the pain. It used to be fun, but those memories were so far in the past that faint wisps of joy were all to which I could cling. Now, it was about bridging the trauma from one day to the next. My elixir was medicinal.

Had we crossed the point of no return? Was the relationship salvageable? Even if it was possible, was there anything left worth saving? What would have to change? Love was out of the question, but was there even anything there to like?

What role could alcohol play in my future? Was it possible to drink enough to trick myself back into love? The tangible feelings were so painful, that I wondered - could I drink them all away?

I existed in these two realities for so long. My life and my marriage coexisted but were hidden from each other. I was causing the pain - my pain and the agony of my bride. My solution was the problem. My medication caused the cancer between us. My escape trapped us both.

“I quit drinking for you, Sheri! What more do you want from me?” A realization. A glimmer of hope. But had it come too late? I stopped, but I didn’t understand. And my question to my bride drove my ignorance home. Even once I could see it, still, somehow, it remained invisible.

Happy joyous and free?

I was, for about a moment in time.

Sober, carefree, new life, new friends, new attitude, new strength

new beginning

I kept hearing that saying recovery is like peeling the layers of an onion and I didn’t get it. 

But what they were trying to tell me was it wasn’t over

My journey

Discovering the self unfolds with every, new experience, argument, loss, grief, celebration brings up new old feelings and deeper insights

and deeper pain.

This feels Familiar

But different

Raw, foreign, 

What is it?

I have this emotion, what the hell is it? Look inside. Shit, I’m lonely. WTF? Me lonely? Surrounded by friends, family, clients, love, things to do….how can this be?

I’ve never really taken that deep dive of intimacy you see. I let you see some of the mess inside but I’ve kept that one closet door shut. It’s my shameful version of Monica’s closet in 'Friends'. 

You open the door and all the shit falls out that you’ve stuffed inside and thought “I’ll deal with that later. I’ll put that in the correct spot when I get organized”. And you never do. 

You leave it. The closet fills up and suddenly the door bursts open as it can only hold so much.

A year or so ago my door burst open.  

Fuck. It wasn’t the end of it they were right. Goddamn onion.

I stalled to tell you the thing I really needed to tell you because I couldn't quite admit it to myself. I stood at the top of the hill, my hair blowing in the wind, my breath catching in my throat with anticipation with what you might think of me. My makeup wasn't quite right, my shoes didn't match my outfit, my coat had a hole under the arm. I had lost the pin you had given me to close my scarf but I knew you wanted me to get it right this time. To be straight about things. To be fair to the world around us. So, I waited. In all my glory, I waited. And here I am. Not pretty, not polished, just me. Today, I waited.

The heart lies

in such strange

lands

vistas unseen and welcoming

The mere strand of

now

When can the yearning

evolve

how will  the flying be

such is the true

and noble yes of it all

Every 3 or 4 years I feel it

It’s time to start over

Wishing we had reset buttons

Instead of 80-100-year expiration dates

But the Buddha says

my essence would stay

Or would I be a new essence

Or would whoever I started over being

eventually revert to original me

It’s not that I can’t change,

it’s that old me’s are never forgotten

Even if I leave one behind,

someone inevitably knows a story

I don’t live under

my family tree mythology anymore,

but they know all about

the me’s I was while I did

and we have been learning

how to talk now

in this new language I speak

I couldn’t find my way to the door some days nor could I find my way down the hall. If it occurred to me to open my eyes I might even have found my own way out of my own way. But the funny thing is, most days that just didn’t occur to me. Some days I could feel the cold air blowing in my face and you know how much I hate, really hate, the cold air in my face. Why didn’t you stop the cold air blowing? Why didn’t you close the door? Or steer me down a different hallway? What? You say you tried. You say you pointed me in a different direction but you didn’t think I could hear you. I was in a world of my own. Yet you never gave up. You kept trying to steer the boat. Be the captain in the middle of the rough rocky sea. In the middle of it all, there I was. I finally saw you, heard you, crawled out of my world. In the middle of it all, I found the door. The hallway straightened, the cold wind turned warm, I opened my eyes.

Here I stand

A lone survivor with a crew of others shipwrecked by their own disaster, many more fatal than mine

Guilt for my weakness for my suffering despite the gifts I’ve been given....that others have not been so lucky…but yet my pain feels so real

"Comparison keeps us separate" I heard once from a wise fellow traveller

It is time to let that go so that I may resume my role here … as a wonderful perfect flawed agonized and elated part of this intricate collection of molecules and thoughts and particles and energy and vibrations

Surrounded with love support and kindness I can flow on the wavelength of life 

Remember that I am connected to you all 

to your pains 

and to  your joys 

when you suffer I suffer 

through your joy I receive the vibration of your passion

One particle bounces down, another reacts against it.. akin to an electrical charge that can restart a heart

Ours beat together in perfect rhythm and synchronicity. 

Ask me to explain it all I cannot. 

it’s a trip, that’s for sure, being in the middle of it all. 

So majestic the glory. So painful the agony. So sweet the wonderment.

Here I am in the middle of it all. 

Just a pinprick, over there, you may have to stop moving to see it!" he said.

Or some such equivalent. The wind was too loud.

Every pine needle multiplied by every branch and tree on the mountain,

in one voice, had become fluent in freight train.

My toes were cold, they were frozen I think, or maybe wet.

In that way that you can't tell which, but I was pretty sure I could still wiggle one piggy.

"We got this! Left! Right!" the wind carried behind him, a phantom drill Sargent.

And so they did. Left foot, right. Left foot, right.

Two dead trees post-holing in a concerted effort forward.

Out of this cold and wind and pain.

Out of this nothing good, static-brained, insanity.

Everything still hurting and begging for release.

But stopping there in the artic maelstrom I could see it.

The light is getting brighter.

Sonofabitch was right.

I'm going to tell you all the reasons why, you should put down the drugs and stop getting high.

I love you so much and I know that you're sick, but this is going to hurt and it won't be quick.

your life is important and I hope you understand, that life doesn't always go according to plan.

just believe in yourself and soon you will see, that you do have the strength to fight this disease.

there are people that love you and care about you so, if there's one thing in this world I want you to know.

that you have my support and you will forever, I won't give up on you no not ever.

Climb the tree

bemuse the maypole

trundle aghast

In a brew of artifice

Regard the microbes

ember pollen August spray

trim the sails for

a bumpy night

turn on a classic

sit back breathe deeply

Realize the universe is not a contest

You are stardust

And another thing

you know the one

with popcorn-cranberry

n sixties era icicles

fractured memories like

the time my DAD cut the tree

off too short, mis measured

and I toe-nailed the top back on

Then a week after Christmas

sweeping up the dry needles

to his quiet tears

and hauling out the tree

into the frozen welcoming

Most nights I could not sleep

Knowing I had reached my inevitable defeat

The days would pass

As would night

I didn't have the strength to put down the pipe

Always strung out never stayed in one place

Feeling like my life was a constant race

Disappointment and guilt fill my veins

I can't seem to hold on to the reins

Always wondering when I would get my next fix

I will do whatever it takes, even lies and tricks

This person you see, the one inside of me

Is a creation of this monster we call a disease

It was all so detached

At first just a hint of

Trust not delivered

Sitting on a rock

The waiting is onerous

You would think that by now

We should know better

Twisted into a mirror

Wished upon a car

Can you just listen for once

We know that the risk

was real

the infection was brittle

you can not dismiss

gravity, fire

the flood is real

real is real

repent from the dream of screams

“Just how does that work?” asked the doctor, letting go of all expectations,
dropping the deck of cards

onto the pile of lonelinesses- tomorrows which never came, did not come, have not, will not, cannot, would not, ought not.

To the stable with the barrow boy-
out with the rifle, don’t stifle, this trifle,
this connection, this appointment with hate, with the labyrinth at the end of time-

at the end of the hall,
turn right for hate room 101, or 108, I forget which- you will remember- just follow the barbwire-

laid-low rosary
leading the way to kingdom come, to Valhalla, the hate bomb,
the eight ball- don’t get stuck

behind the shadow Sisyphus got stuck behind, getting his inverse, reverse tan on the hill to the beacon-
comb your hair stallion,

meet me where the shadows are long, where the asphalt ends,
where the fun starts,
the angels land-

light as feathers,
deft as daffodils
before they are blown-
don't pass me up because my skin is sallow,

because I didn't swallow, because I didn't change my Carhart tutu
for the real deal!

Watching the speed o hover around 110 as the exhaust is screaming, nothing in sight for miles, just the open desert highway and some cactus that never really comes into focus as the truck speeds by. They both hated going to Vegas but loved the drive to get there. A rolling burn out across the dam back when you could get away with that sort of thing and it was on to the city of sin. There’s a spot where you crest the hill and you’re just staring up at the pollution above the city and the lights of the first casino welcoming you to the last place they really wanted to be, you down shift to start your descent into madness and “Where the Streets Have No Name” comes on the radio. I never enjoyed Vegas, or the situations surrounding my travels there but that song still makes me smile every time.

Writers for Recovery is pleased to announce that it has received a $5000 grant from the Vermont Community Foundation’s 2020 Northeast Kingdom Fund. The grant will help to expand writing workshops and other innovative programs throughout the Northeast Kingdom during 2021. We anticipate collaborating with recovery centers, prisons ,and social service organizations throughout the Kingdom to bring powerful writing workshops to folks in recovery. We will also present a number of readings at local libraries and art centers across the NEK. Stay tuned for more!

Something I never expected to find was looking at me with those huge brown eyes. Like an emoji that one would send that doesn’t blink, that doesn’t know what has happened. They were crystal clear, so bold in their shape, their color, their strength. They were running from something that had trapped them in this lifetime. They were looking at me, asking me to free them, but I didn’t want them to run back into my life again. So, where was I to release them? How did I tell them “I will let you go if you run the other way”? So, I looked into those big brown eyes, released the trap that was holding them, only hanging then, and do you know something that I never expected, happened. Those big brown eyes ran the other way. Or were they blue? That would have been something I would have expected!

There he was
So deliciously captivating
I looked over and caught his eye
I had felt him watching me, calling me
Tempting me
The tattoo on his neck should have been a warning sign “ STAY the fuck AWAY!!”
Yet, I felt a warm rush run through me
He lit me on fire
All from one glance.
I immediately was captivated… pulled to him
Like a moth to a flame
I should have known his was a flame that would scorch my soul; but that’s the thing when you start dancing with the Devil
You feel heat in your body down to your loins

and nothing can pull you away
I never expected to go there again
But I did that day. I began a slow seductive tango
We played that game….you know the one…I coyly look into his eyes, he looks up catches mine, I look away
TALK TO HIM my body screamed
I was too afraid
I tried to muster the strength and courage to speak
Words failed...as some part of me knew he was danger
My stop came.
As I stepped off the subway car, I watched him, our eyes still locked
As the doors closed he disappeared quickly, but our eyes remained connected until he slipped away deep into the tunnel…perhaps never to be seen again.
It was fodder for my imagination for months.

It became an obsession.

But the day came...he walked into a room …there we were, together again.

What were the chances?
There we were.
That was the beginning of the end for me.

A brief

ecstatic

soul crushing

rave
The beat of the music pulsed through me while I fell into the hole that was him...
I swore I’d never do it again. But I did. And it gutted me.
The scars remain.