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Author: Gina M.

I Don’t Miss the Birds
I’m so sober,
I miss talking to the 4 a.m. moon.
The way she’d respond in phases.
The way she rose no matter the places I gravitated.
I’m so sober.
I used to be awake for days and now I’m asleep before eight.
I’m so sober.
When I see cirrus clouds in the sky, my thoughts don’t go straight to lines of cocaine.
I’m so sober.
I used to maintain my high,
Now I maintain life.
Now I don’t look down on myself.
I don’t look down into mirrors.
I keep my head held high.
I’m not high.
I meet my reflection straight on.
I’m so sober.
I don’t roll bills into straws; my money would unravel like lockets of curls.
I don’t stumble from stalls with powder in balls in my pockets.
I’m so sober my bills stay straight in my wallet.
I’m so sober.
My phone barely rings.
It used to sing with the needs of all the people wanting all the shit that I used to have.
I’m so sober I snapchat my actual cat.
I’m so sober.
I preach meditation. I preach self-care. I preach coincidence.
Now my phone never dings because people don’t care what I have now that I’m sober.
I’m sober.
I’m so sober.
Since I’m sober, I don’t deal.
I’m too real for some people.
Since I’m sober, I don’t miss most people.
I kiss less people.
I miss the moon, but I don’t miss the feeling when the sun takes over and I still haven’t slept.
I don’t miss the way my heart used to pound in my chest.
I don’t miss the birds chirping the melody of my utter lack of self-respect.
I’m so sober I don’t miss.
I don’t miss birthdays. Or alarms.
I don’t miss milestones. Or opportunities.
Now that I’m sober, I don’t miss my family.
Now that I’m sober, we talk all the time.
I’m so sober I don’t miss the sun in the sky.
I’m so sober,
I don’t miss the birds.

Author: Gina M. I Don’t Miss the Birds I’m

By Uri Hotchberg

Where Am I
Is this rock bottom
What did I do to deserve this
Why is this happening
Just kill me

There is so much pain
Anger, shame, and guilt
Resentment, fear, and hopelessness
Darkness it’s so dark
Its to dark
There is no light at the end
I’d rather be dead

Isolation is my comfort zone
Love there is none
Not for myself
Not for anyone else
Care- it left my existence
Soul- I have none
Emptiness- I am so empty

Hope- there is none
Dreams- it leads to pain
Decisions- all bad
Emotions- I don’t want to feel
Happy- I am consumed with sadness

So many scars
Hurt many people
Really hurt my family
To many sins
And terrible things
What’s wrong with me
I hate myself

Is it a disease
Was I born with it
Did someone create it
Did I create it
Is there a cure
Is there medicine
How do I get rid of it

Repress it
Bury it
Deep deep
Make it go away
I don’t want to feel it anymore
Self-medicate

Alcohol, drugs that should work
It works till it doesn’t work
Its my way of life
The only way to manage life
Cant get out
Don’t want to get out
Need more more more
It has to work

Its not working
There has to be another way
But I’m not worth it
I don’t deserve it
I shouldn’t be forgiven
I’m not a good person
I have nothing to offer

Choice- decision
Live or die
Happy or sad
Joy or anger
Hope or hopelessness
Forgive myself or live in shame
Dream or fear
Love or hate

I am strong
I can choose
If I love
I can be loved
I can accept what I cant change
I can change what I can
Myself

Take a risk
Let someone in
Give from my heart
Help and to be helped
My love can help you
Your love can help me
My love can help me
I am worth it

By Uri Hotchberg Where Am I Is this rock

Author: Brittany M.

Overwhelmed, feeling exhausted.

Never ending tasks that never get started.

It’s  like one step forward – five steps back

Only focus then was finding which vein to track.

With the flash of blood and the push of the plunger

You filled me, like I was starving from hunger.

Steady with the pull, you made me euphoric.

Who would have known how many blessings you’d make me forfeit.

I won’t lie, you helped me get through a great deal of pain;

But keeping you around now, just won’t be the same.

I put you before my relationship, my family, my freedom, and my daughter.

I had a full academic scholarship, I should’ve been smarter.

By God’s grace I have a chance to redeem my life.

I’m going to get my shit together peacefully, without any of your bullshit or strife.

I’m looking forward to freedom in the rest of my days

But don’t get it twisted – I’ll always think of you, but in my past you will stay.

I forgive you for blinding my judgement, making me believe you were a treat

This go around, the only ups and downs I want to face is in between the sheets.

Author: Brittany M. Overwhelmed, feeling exhausted. Never ending tasks

Author: Melissa S.

I said I’d never find you,
Who knew that would be a lie
I knew what you could do,
So now I ask myself why?

I felt so alone,
You promised me comfort
In that first bowl
Who knew what I’d suffer

One was too many,
A thousand wasn’t enough
This new beginning
Was already to much

It hid behind a mask
I didn’t see it coming
In a trance by the music
It seemed to be strumming

This is my story
Who knew it’d be so sad
I only saw the glory
Blind to all the bad

I no longer felt so blue
This should have been a sign
Instead Everything I knew
Flew from my mind

One hit
Brought me comfort
One shot
Brought me to life

Nothing seemed wrong
Consequences I couldn’t see
All my pain was gone
I felt so free

There could never be a romance
Like yours and mine
The way that we dance
They call crazy in my mind

No love could compare
Your Always there
I can see the despair
I know it’s not fair

You damaged my life
Corrupted my soul
This is my fight
To repair on my own

I need to find me
So please let me go
Its time for me to truly be free
No longer for you to hold

Once you were my choice
Then you became my habit
Now I’ve found my voice
I’m recovering not an addict

Author: Melissa S. I said I’d never find

Author: Samuel W. Asselstine

I wait for her as the sun rises high,

She is not here,

I see her from afar,

She is gone as before,

Little notice and without a thought,

She takes her Love,

And shares herself with so many, yet

I miss her so dearly.

I wait for her as people eat breakfast,

She dines but no longer with me,

I see her in a car,

I see her in a store, and with

Little notice and without a thought,

She has left me for so many, yet still

I miss her so dearly.

She makes me Lie,

And she makes me steal,

She makes me beg,

She makes me kneel,

She makes me hurt,

She makes me cry, and with

Little notice and without a thought

She leaves me for so many,

Why would I miss her so dearly?

I think of her at night,

She doesn’t sleep,

She wakes me up, to check and see,

If she can have just one more spin with me,

There is no such thing as never,

Just not right now please,

I can find her when i want, and she’ll take me,

And everyone else in the way,

She’ll make me happy but not even for a day,

So, I decide when she’s with me,

Not the other way.

Author: Samuel W. Asselstine I wait for her

How does she coax a rose from a stone?

Cold flat surface and non-dimensional plane.

Heavy burden of stone, lifeless, exhausted, no name.

Her days have moved forward with more days yet to come.

And like a stone she won’t let go of the things that she’s done.

And she sits contemplating the greatest of sin, treating each day as a means to an end.

Until one day a question came in the form of a prose.

Is there any way to coax a rose from a stone?

Is there any way to move a stone to rebirth?

No more counting on someone or something to show her self-worth?

So she sits at her table, a stone in her hand and reaches an agreement they both understand.

This life did not give her something already made, but provided the pathway to let her be brave.

So to answer the question that came from this prose;

How does one coax a rose from a stone?

The answer is simple, but the path isn’t straight.

It takes time, patience, bravery, and love to create.

Author: Joyce Brand

How does she coax a rose from

Our Ground Time Will Be Brief

Pressure on figs makes them sweeter.

—Arabic saying

 

If only your date of death were slipped

under your door—then maybe you’d jettison

your adolescent, super-human fictions, not film

your roof-launch onto piled mattresses;

maybe

you wouldn’t walk across the arc

of the bridge’s left girder on a dare,

sneakers snugged between round buttons

of oversized bolt heads, river and train streaming

beneath, your pals waving from the bank

like frightened windmills;

maybe, just maybe,

you’d stop telling yourself there’s time

for another shot, another black out drunk

where tales of that other self mount,

achieving cult status—

time for cigarettes

coughed up in the cemetery—Dog,

you’ll get over it, choke it down;

maybe

you’d stop saying there’s time enough

to travel to that distant island

with its Recovery sign twinkling;

or time

to make love again and again to

a woman you don’t love.

If you held

death beside you every night

how would you live each day differently?

What carnival ride would you choose

as the hands near zero?

What words

would you commit to? Poems that attack

cancer cells, as if the push

of pen could clear fields of them

blooming in someone’s lungs?

Would you drive

across seven states to tell your ex-lover: I slept

with someone too, shouldn’t have blamed you?

Would you sign intake forms with your real name?

Takethe train to Hoboken

and hold her hand

again? Here, this is that notice,

a Coming Soon sign

wrapped around a book of matches.

The rustled paper seems to whisper: Go on,

burn down the house, set fire

to all that doesn’t matter.

                                                Here, this envelope

and note can kindle it, watch the blooming

take the wood.

Author: DAS

Our Ground Time Will Be Brief Pressure

Old Me

Author: April Cornwell

Crystal rocks & different kinds of baggies
money stacked 5’s, 10’s, 20’s, & 50’s
phone goes off another person at my door
plenty of money doesnt matter I want more
police are running up surprise its a raid
I was careful but is always ends the same
county here I come and I don’t even care
hell I knew the risks & still bravely dared
opening my eyes realizing it was just a dream
no shaking or cold sweats for I’m still clean
I refused to live that life any longer
that’s the old me now I’m stronger.

Old Me Author: April Cornwell Crystal rocks & different

Lifestyle

Author: April Cornwell

Sometimes I still feel the pull
the want to be back in that lifestyle,
I have to fight it every single day
to give up will be a life in exile,
now i awake always wondering
just who in the hell was I?
exchanging rocks for dollar bills
knowing at any second I could die,
that door to destruction has closed
I’ve opened another even better door,
now I’m sober life is way different
i refuse to live that way anymore,
I know I can be a better person
that lifestyle isn’t worth a damn,
even though at times it was fun
I know now this is who I am.

Lifestyle Author: April Cornwell Sometimes I still feel the

And So They Let Her…

Author: Beth Poulin

She was made by great people, She came from great stock,

At the very beginning, darkness ticked not the clock.

 

She was born into privilege, She was born into light,
She was rambunctious in daytime, She was restful by night.

 

She was graced with some talent, She was blessed with some brain,
That precision, that pedestal, was hers to craft and to gain.

 

She smiled in the spotlight, She put trophies on the shelf,
She developed the image, but She had no sense of self.

 

She kept checking the boxes, kept seizing the day,
But the darkness was growing, She was not close to ok.

 

She took Their support, She fed off Their praise,
She made it look normal, and it seemed like a phase.

 

She had talent with lying, She could put on the show,
They had NO way to see it, They had NO way to know…

 

…And So They Let Her Rise

 

Her life become hollow, perfection too much,
The demons, the devils, the defects and such.

 

She preferred to be wrecked, to be broken, enslaved,

She had no interest in help, no desire to be saved.

 

She lied and She cheated and injured and stole,

Cared not for Her pieces, Her whole or Her soul.

 

She burned all her bridges and wore out Her welcome,

She drank and She starved with no care for the outcome.

 

They paid and They prayed, and They pleaded and cried,

But in heart and in mind They knew lightness had died.

 

They used all Their resource, They TRIED and They TRIED,

But They lost Her each minute She deceived and denied.

 

She spit in Their faces, explained away all Their fears,

She rubbished Their love and She laughed at Their tears…

 

…And So They Let Her Fall

 

She dipped toes in the water, to meetings She went,

She admitted She needed the messages GOD sent.

 

She listened to friends and saw fellows succeed,

She writhed and She thrashed to make peace with the need.

 

She tried to be ready, She opened one ear,

She stumbled, She mumbled, still best friends with fear.

 

She felt the disorder and dissected the pains,
She wanted back on the tracks, not to chase the wrong trains.

 

She tried one near-death shot, but that shot didn’t take,

She then knew to rebuild Oh Sweet God She must break.

 

The bottom She found and the bottom She sought,

Found that peace couldn’t be drank, or be purged or be bought.

 

She finally said quietly, could barely hold up Her head,

“I think I need HELP”, from Her hospital bed….

 

…And So They Let Her Grow

­­­

Doctors and Therapists and Counselors, Oh My,

She went and She vented with clear sparkle in eye.

 

She grew brave with the fight, the release of confession,

Knew corrected living was now her divined new profession.

She paid up and hushed up and stood up and found,
She would find Her full aura if She stood Her full ground.

 

She processed, accepted and wounds She did sew,
Fell into the balance and learned how to say no.

 

She re-entered the real word, pledged service and shared,

Showed family and friends and HERSELF that She cared.

 

She captured and raptured the saving power of love,

When it comes from within and around and ABOVE.

 

She kicked and She treaded, head stayed high above water,

Through the sunlight of the spirit, They again saw Their Daughter…

 

…And So They Let Her Go

 

And So They Let Her… Author: Beth Poulin She