A brief heroically wasted life was not after all what i was after
a musty anonymous church basement room
a close to opaque cloud of silver-blue cigarette smoke
a cup of hi-test styrofoam coffee
a merciless orange plastic chair
the usual pre-meeting buzz & chatter
the banter the world class palaver
this strange fellowship of stranger characters
(where my strangeness isn’t even all that strange)
these sometimes lucid now & again blind sort of brilliant
stumbling ecstatic lucky ludicrous perfect imperfections
these are the average unbelievable people
who plain & simple saved
my average behind…
they didn’t lecture or moralize
demand allegiance obedience or submission
mostly they made suggestions sought wisdom & told stories–:
stories like a boxer’s disaster nose his cauliflower ears
stories like a clown’s alarming slapstick dance on the highwire
stories about everything & nothing
& how much they both matter
stories about the runaways who make it home
& the ones who never do
stories that broke my heart like a birthday pinata
stories that convinced me that maybe just maybe
i wasn’t as special & all alone as i thought
& that possibly perhaps this might be a good time
for me to shut up & do some listening
stories that told a story about addiction
& how it corrupts you body mind & soul
a chronic progressive fatal addiction
although you don’t have to die from it they said
unless you absolutely insist on it…
ask for some help & follow this path they told me
& even though right now you think it’s impossible
you can in fact learn how to live
inside your own skin without drinking or using drugs–:
you can face yourself face up to your past
work to make your amends
work at being less of a selfish jerk
& believe it or not you can find a life–:
a useful decent creative messy contradictory
bittersweet ordinary human life
& if you stick with it
if you practice your practice & stay reasonably real
you will sooner or later get your chance to pass it on
to give away what was given to you
& you can do it too
because you know what it’s like to be desperate
to be fresh out of excuses wisecracks & clever comebacks
to be standing at that doorway
angry ashamed afraid
& wondering how the hell did i wind up here?…
the amazing transformational grace of human solidarity
that was the magic that was the gift
that was what they gave me
instead of what i deserved…
