Mappa Mundi

Mappa mundi. On my back I
sleep without mountains, or oceans,
or broken continents drifting off
in search for more.
Birds turn origami and
I am left with an echo.

Somewhere between maple rain
and God’s sweet thumb I broke
the rules.
Sand has lost all reason.
Sun has lost its meaning.
Direction is meant for the breathing…
So is matter.

Mappa mundi. Inside
I am a universe. The eye of God, on my
back, giving birth to angels with
white wings of clouds.
Thunder claps in approval
while I whistle an old echo
to the vast dark matter

that prays for existence.

Disease

If it was fire, I would be burned across my liver.
If it was water, I would be floating belly-up one hundred miles down stream.
If it was a daydream, I would have plummeted from the heaven’s and crushed by heavy streets below.

I’ve always known the thick romance of being lost, deep in black brain jungles, where tigers eat tigers to build their own stripes.

My birth brought it. It was my placenta. We were strong together and now I am separated from eternity.

Cosmos

Lift my head from soft evil;
a black chest I know
to well,

arms that swing sharp blades around my throat.

We meet where day begins,
after black out thick ends…

smoke smothers from my pores –

I remember the Cosmos,
shooting up the stars,
crawling out of his damp position

and lift,
            lift,
                lifting off.

Whiskey Breath

First greet is at seams
that thread life to life.
She blossoms fresh blue,
nervous laughter sifts through

her eyes. Not me.
I am fog thick of red rage,
a fire smoldered by hard smoke hiatus,
stoned like rolling tonic waves.

She dips her fingers down my throat,
caressed by silence – she knows me at once.
I pour myself onto her.
I tell her how I know the moon,
how I sleep with it’s chill and
am never alone.

She tells me it’s habit, like her
laugh, that I’m addicted, I’m turning
to ashes. I say, “I don’t know if you’re a ghost of
me or I’m a ghost of you.”

She swings bright over Summer where
I plant my roots, under bed sheets
and claim the Earth as our own.
She was a kingdom,
I was in ruin.

I let loose my whiskey hot breath
on her air,
she strips bare of deliberation,
dripping thirst from her soft light
and we creak together in the shadows
of sensation.

And in the mix of time and transcendence,
frost grows over my eyelids.
I am blind.
Mouth froze,
then my insides.

She hammers at me for weeks,
heaving in heavy tumor.
She begs back for the comfort of the
roots we birthed together.

Life drops wet down my cheeks,
she drapes over me
for years,
Or is it me over her?
I wish….
I want….
The seasons have stopped.
I can’t find her blue through the fog.

Guest Post: Treatment Network

*Please read thoroughly. I rarely take guest posts, but I believe whole-heartedly with what this article states. “Addiction is a disease, dependency is not a choice.”

This article is written by Camille Mitchell for http://treatmentnetwork.com/

Myths about Addiction

The “War on Drugs” has been raging for over 40 years. Yet, one in twelve American’s is still addicted. Many of them are your friends and family. You know them. In a phrase, “the system has failed.” Prevention measures are largely ineffective. Treatment efforts have failed to meet expectations. The numbers are staggering in terms of price and victims. We sit and wonder why our health care costs are skyrocketing but just have to look across the room at a son or daughter that contributes to the billions spent every year on medical cures for addicts. The American taxpayer shoulders these costs because these addicts cannot pay the bill for themselves. They are a pervasive social burden that comes with a price tag. The number $600 billion is bandied about as the combined costs of medical, economic, criminal, and social costs that are borne by “the system” every year. How many schools would that build in rural Appalachia for a population that is undereducated and underprivileged? How much national debt would that retire so we do not burden our future generations with our bad judgment and poor decision-making?

We have been making too many excuses for too long and investing money in theories and processes that do not work. The money drain has to be stopped and the social problem has to be cleaned up. The prisons of this country are filled with drug addicts that are slapped on the wrist and returned to society to continue to be addicts. We build more jails, create more judges, and build more courthouses to accommodate our social failures every year. We fail because we do not understand. We fail because we choose to lock away the problem with the hope that the few months or years they are out of the mainstream will cure them. Yet, they still get their drugs while they are incarcerated and we return them to society with the same problem as when they went in but fit for society because we “rehabilitated” them. Hogwash.

Only bad children use drugs … then why do 80% of our children use drugs at one time or another? We invoke social morality to soothe our egos and alienate our won children in the process. Health and safety is the social issue, not good and bad.

Stress, inability to cope and trauma are the root causes of drug use. Yet, our social focus is on “Just Say No”. You prevent drug use by your daughter by dealing with her ability to handle the social pressures of life. It is possible to prevent drug use. It is impossible to stop drug use for those that are hell bent on doing it. The difference between the two is like night and day.

Addiction is a disease. It is chronic and progressive. Dependence is real, not a choice. Children who become addicted are not weak and without morals. They are ill. They need help.

We need to wake up and smell the roses. If we insist on throwing money at the problem to solve it, then we had better find a lot more money. The problem will not be solved by spending money on the things we do now. Attack the causes of the problem, not the symptoms.

~ by Camille Mitchell

Guest post by http://treatmentnetwork.com/

Morning Acid

Tuesday morning flakes of acid fall
scalding my skin.
The fingers of sin touched me last night
and I swallowed
and I swallowed hard!

I doubt my nerves.
They are earthquakes in blankets,
shaking for no reason.
Midnight will come tonight
and I’ll put it off.

I’ll put off the moon
and the length of my legs
and the sin that will lay its hands upon me

but, hours strike like tree switches.
At one o’clock, i’ll sink underwater.
Breathing is automatic,
like a trigger,
so all this living,
and my skin,
will continue burning.

After the sun, I will stop drinking.

Countermeasure

Little Brother Brazen
lives on floor number four
without shoes

the pharmacy is closed
forever indefinitely
like windows
are
up on the fourth floor

Little Puny Palms
hoarded
a wealth of contaminates
swallowing
dosage after dosage
until
an overdosed panic spilled
confession from
his eyes

he was charged
to
green masked men
green masked
women

clear plastic tubes
forced liquid charcoal
to disgorge
rich heaps of self-inflicted
euthanasia

My
Little Brother Brazen
was charged
to floor number four
where Dr. Head
took his windows
and shoes

countermeasure.