There will be a day and it could be this one where you will finally know what you have to do and you’ll begin on your knees at first tombed in your house with the old voice of doom in your ear and the rot of apology on your breath you’ll walk outside where crickets…
Matthew Perry: a sad and beautiful read for a sad and beautiful life
960 Days!
I don’t do this enough. Journal about one of the 960 days that comprise my sobriety tonight. I have many journals of day ones and day 30s and they still mean everything to me and are very much a part of the 960 today. All of those broken pieces have been repurposed to form the…
Born Again
Rilke said everything is gestation and then birthing I know this is true because the second time I was born after he broke everything not just my heart after I spoke everything not just my heart and years moved and my soul moved mutely in the dark unsayable nothing I emerged from that womb
Morning affirmations
I open my kitchen blinds and gape at the hawk, perched on the garden lamp at the edge of my lawn. She notices everything with those prehistoric, ravening eyes, like two old stars, charged with origin stories far more savage than mine. She isn’t here to sing— She’s here to scream— To tear meat from…
My parents are God on earth to me
They are his word, that gentle force that moves over and into my darkness to whisper let there be light. And my dad is God made flesh. He who stands before me to do the work of living, to do the work of breaking, to do the work of rebuilding with the pieces left over. …
Closed Curtains
Winter drops the late afternoon sun into my bedroom window just after three o’clock. He hovers there— burning the edges of my closed curtains like an eclipse I can touch. He says, you have to invite me in, which I find charming. My palms hover over the fabric, pin-holed from cats, reminding me of that…
Change is overrated
If there’s one thing that recovering alcoholics excel at it’s self-flagellation. Maybe it’s not just recovering alcoholics, but any one of us mid-way through life’s journey lost in a dark wood. It seems the first thing we ask is what can I change? Should I lose weight. Read more. Travel. Fix up the house. Find…
One Year Sober!
The last time I tried to get sober, I remember feeling elated at my almost 6-month milestone. I felt then like one might expect I would feel today. But I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the strength that allowed me to arrive at this day, but my celebration is tempered by…
Black Widow
Your sleek, black body pressed on the stucco wall in my backyard should have frightened me, Latrodectus— But instead I felt like I did as a child, crunching through the woods, achingly aware of things greater than myself. I made your acquaintance then, discovering that you go days without breathing, you bond to vertical surfaces,…
Sobriety Poet 