Departure

Some eyes open like black holes,
gravitationally throwing memorial stones through a moment,

letting time break a silence that lingers in every muscle,
every finger tip
for a soft crash of acknowledgment.

Other eyes move like flat lines and we must guess. Ache drips from our palms like candle wax, hot with the stench of regret
and blame.

I remember the first taste of his
time, brutal pine in November’s icy driveway. I know his eyes opened
to our flavor together,

but now he walks in such a quick
rush; as if the Earth might split without eating him up

and he talks,
like voices do
when they should,

but not one blink wrinkles,
or speaks,
or loves.

Janus

By doorways and walls, I pass through
with two faces. I am honoured
and assassinated by fruits and
seeds of the people.

They move their lips, I hear deep shrills.
They whisper like big cannons
at battle. I keep each as a sacred
stone; I throw each as a poisonous tale.

Today, God loves my motion. I merge with
Galileo under seven planets
I am his Dialogue on the Ebb and Flow of the Sea.

But tomorrow will take me suspiciously.
Medusa will come to show
the bogus end of Venus and her beautiful phase.

White weasels come in pack, they smell her
insidiousness; she sits coy on my tongue
while I am categorized.

Back to square rooms, black chairs,
flat carpet,
doorways,
walls,
I pass through with two faces.
I am honoured by amber vials,
assassinated by the pills.

They move their lips,
I hear fuzziness and laughter…
quit laughing at me
quit laughing at me
I am a statue,
I am trapped here.

The Great Crime

You will lay aside your suspicions of me.
Slide the doormat over your back,
be still.
I turn silver coin accusation
between my finger tips
and flip.

The great crime, I ask you,
a civil war inside me,
or you?

My innocence is like this!

Your guilt is a private loss,
but the way you droop confidence
downward, as if the ground
will forgive you,
shows my victory,

and in my voice, forgiveness,
but my gut smirks.
I am a temple of construction.

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/

Without Myself

The music, with sharp tongues and daggers, presses hard against me.
I have been swinging from lyrical ropes
for days. If it wasn’t for guilt!
If it wasn’t for the time I have spent
drinking cups full of guilt, with guilt, for guilt.

Guilt raises dark hands that curve into
the shoulders of undeserving men and women.
My stomach tosses me over myself
for the thirtieth time today!

I can remember all of the first times that
I laid myself down with fire, judging
the length of my hair,
or the color of my skin,
or the shape of my body.
Do you believe me?
Do you believe that I spend time
tying myself up against poisonous walls,
waiting for a soft heart to come walking in,
6 feet tall,
with a blade meant only to save me?
Do you believe that?

No matter!
It is true.
I expected you and you and you!

But, not today.
Today, I fold myself over in two.
Half of me has my hands and my voice.
The other half is walking away with my feet and
my womanhood.
I do not know which half to venture off with,
so I sit here,
on this blue couch that is not, and never will be
something that I can call mine.
I sit, without myself, here.

I have branched out, and, in the same moment,
left myself behind.
Do you believe me?
Do you believe that a girl as leathery as me
could leave without herself, or
let herself go, for that matter?
Do you believe that?

It doesn’t matter.
Not now. Not when I sit on guilt’s lap, flirting
with her for approval. Not when
I tie myself down to her, to her and this soft, blue
couch.
What matters now, is the bacon and eggs that I will make her
for breakfast. What matters now,
is the laundry in the little room,
the showers that need to be scrubbed,
and the fact that
I am still tied up here, to these poisonous walls.

Map To Agony

I made a thick map to agony where
blackbirds fly with molten wings,
cackle over swart prattle;
corrupted gut remains.

But, I cannot go.

I am busy.
I am Feeding on seeds of raw season
ardor.

Piles of sediment – particles soaked in grief – had been
heart raked,
sowed deep down inside hollow ground.
Alone with dark space.
Rooted.

In ten years, never could I have plucked up
as easily.
A sanguine, green gaze lifts rust cakes
from my wrists,
then my ankles,
then my eyes,
then my smile.

Then, I am moral.
There, I am valued.

Agony is an old white pillow that I
spit pneumonia on to.
It is Elvis Presley in fake fever morning.
It is six am deer fly kicks.
It is curled up on hard washroom
floor board.
It is repulsive reassurance;
malnourished.

I made a determined map to agony, where
nothing suffices,
dead things grow more dead
under night’s greasy carnivorous sweats.

But, I cannot go.

I am busy.
I am busy planting luster

with a green gazer,
with flexible wrists,
with fleshy eye-lids in restful reassurance.
I am nourished.