April 3, 2015

“Lovely Pain”
Anonymous

I’m drowning in dirty water
But you pushed me in
I have a habit with the monster
I’m addicted to the sin
Innocent days, are those I miss
You laid hands on me
And granted me with this kiss

But I blame me
For all those things, and this
I cannot live without my habit
that now
is always amiss
                                               
All these things live inside me
They are depriving me of my bliss.
Once, I was happy, I used to be clean
Now these things
Are eating me, consuming me
Driving me insane.
I’m just a lonely girl
hopeless,
Empty, used, and left in pain
I’m still alive, but I feel mostly dead
Why must I stay here trapped inside my head?
The heart I have is cracked and almost gone
So why must I stay here and linger on?
I fall deeper in the murky water
I’m about to drown
And the people passing by
Just look at me and frown
Sometimes I feel nothing
Sometimes I feel it all

But I have not come to terms
With none of this at all.

 

I wrote this poem years ago while I was struggling with an abusive relationship after a drug overdose and an ongoing battle with addiction. This is very personal to me. I now have been sober for almost three years. I'm going to Nicolet for the Nursing program and now have a fiancé and a beautiful daughter. I couldn't be any happier than I am now.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

“Amends”
By Ed O’Casey

(For Anna Akhmatova and Dax Riggs)

Carlos once showed me how to step
into daylight so that I could know:
the sun is more
than just a hole in the sky.

We approached the grave purposefully,
Carlos with the pick,
the shovel, trudging
just enough behind me to ensure
I would not divert,
or launch myself from the graveyard.
It was enough to lift my feet.

Now the crater is empty,
and Carlos kisses the stillness
out of the exhumed,
directs me to lift it,
to cradle it like an infant
that might one day resuscitate me.

I put a hand on its cheek
and we relive its vacant past:
the heat, the hopelessness of infancy.
Today I would unlock the door,
roll down a window, and release
the sun’s ardent children
and this one.

Tomorrow Carlos and I will cradle it
to my family and kneel
at their door,
lift the undead remains high
and beg that they see what I have overcome.

I am a full-time English instructor and new resident of Rhinelander. I've survived my first winter, so I feel I can take on pretty much anything.