The Ruins

A shambled mess this city became,
Years upon years of war and decay.
Acclaimed for its intellect, acclaimed for potential,
Now ashamed of its corridors, smashed is its temples.

One yelled, "Rebirth!"
The other, "Submission!"
The others talked much,
But none would dare listen.

So war ravaged outer, but inner more deeply,
Hopes and dreams for a city, instead, died so weakly.

Without fight, without grimace,
Without struggle for image,
Without life, without balance,
Without growth, it grew callous.

Shrouded in misery, the city of plight,
The city was ruined, without life in its sight.

But there was one in its midst,
Yes one who might stand.
One might rise up,
One might make his demands.

He yelled, "Bring me brick!"
He screamed, "Clear the wreckage!"
He spoke of a newness,
A city corrected.

In a desperate attempt, he worked with new spirit,
Where the ruins once stood, stood new hope in the clearing...




There is not one  of us that does not have the ability to erect a new city within ourselves. Whether we are in ruins, or whether we simply need adjustments, there is hope. Every day is a new day, and every moment is a choice. The only thing guaranteed to us is our ability to choose our attitude at any given moment. Love is an attitude. May we spread it through all of humanity. 

A Complete Psychic Change....

The belief that as an addict, I have to go through a complete psychic change is jarring. Coupled with the fear of not being perfect, it becomes a daily struggle. I find myself thinking day to day that I need to be better. That I need to become something far greater than the person that I am. This may be true. There is something that saves me; It took ten years to become this way, it may take a lifetime to recover. What's more, I have a new found respect for growth over time. Drugs, drinking, and sex got me used to instant gratification. Continually developing myself on a day to day basis has given me something far greater; Self value, and the start of the psychic change necessary to transcend my self destructive behavior.

The journey to reinforcing my lifestyle during my druggie days was a very sad, depressing and lonely one. The guilt and shame, followed by the use of whatever I could get my hands on to either numb emotions, or elevate happiness that I might hold on to for a while longer, became something I dreaded. I knew nothing of reality. When people speak of coping mechanisms, I chose to intoxicate myself. I learned little of anything else, especially anything constructive. Anything to alter my mind state and be away from the world for a bit, that was what I was after on a regular basis. The last seven years of my life have literally been spent on obsessing about using, using, or obsessing about when the next time I was going to use was. This went for drugs, drinking, and sex. Anything else was an annoyance that usually gave me an excuse to do it all over again!

Imagine my relief when I started to have a change of heart and mind. I realized I hurt so many people, including myself. I realized that what I was doing was driving me to insanity. I became suicidal. I hated myself. I hated my family. I disconnected from friends. I couldn't hold a job. I could not achieve anything close to my goals or aspirations. My life was in shambles. I had been homeless and jailed, and all sorts of other things in between. But I had something change. I wanted something more. I wanted to find the person inside of me that screamed for a voice. I could be decent, I may even have the ability to surpass that, I could be beautiful. Now I had had these brief moments where I thought like this, but they were usually drowned out by thoughts of being a monster, of never being able to complete anything I set out to, by self-hatred, self-pity, justification for my behavior (I blamed all of my actions on others; what's accountability?), I could continue to increase this list to infinite. I had every excuse in the book not to change my ways. But what was the reason I wouldn't?

The mind of the addict, as I see it, is a paradox; I wanted success, knowing I would never have it living the way I did, yet I continued to perpetuate a cycle of lunacy. "I can't go on like this," "I must stop this!" "This one more time and then I will begin life!" "Screw it, I'll never be good enough!" "I'm so ashamed of myself..." "Why can't I change?" "I don't want to do this anymore..." "Maybe I can do it even though I live like this!" "What's the use, this is the only thing I'm good for" "I hate everything anyways, this is what I need" "I'll only use when I complete a task!" "F*&^ IT!". All were followed by using one thing or another. How bizarre. Self knowledge of my thought process helped none either. If anything, I felt more ashamed when I knowingly continued even though I had told myself what would happen and planned to defend against it.

The problem was my heart and mind. "When the fear of changing is less the the pain of staying the same, change can happen." One of the wisest women I've met to date said that to me and a few others. My mind was exhausted. My heart was broken. My emotions were wrecked. I decided to face that fear. It started with admittance. I needed to accept the fact that I was the source of my problems. It just had to be done. Next I needed to realize I wasn't the center of the universe, that I couldn't control everything. There was more. The bottom line is there is much work to be done when you're as messed up as I was. The greater realization was that in order to be happy with myself, I needed to continually work toward my "beauty" for the rest of my life. This would not be an easy task, but I decided it would be far better to try and fail, then to continue on the way I was heading.

That was almost six months ago. I'm still completely bonkers. But I am slowly gaining my freedom from that thinking. I have lapses in mental activity, but nowhere near as bad! The most beautiful part of this, no one has to be an addict to become insane. I became that even before I started using. Somethings just make us unhappy, there is a wide range of things that can give us the strength to overcome them.

My only hope is that through the love we should all have for ourselves, we can all become something that surpasses the suffering of this world currently. whether a complete psychic change is necessary, or just a minor adjustment; It is more than possible. Love could be ever present and expressed on such a grand scale. My heart cries not for it's brokenness, but the brokenness of the hearts around me. I feel them. I want them so desperately to find the life force that can bring it the strength to shed light to the world.

So sentimental, yet completely acheivable. Call me utopian, call me an idealist. I call myself a human, and I'm more than willing to give my life for the happiness of others.

In the Chambers of a Judge

In the morning, I slip on my gown,
I pass on a sentence, I hand judgment down,
I know who are innocent, who are guilty,
I can find fault with them all, all are so filthy.

It takes infinite strength to pronounce all these cases,
Infinite cruelty to judge all these faces.
There are those that aren't happy, some are depressed,
Some are pretenders, some have success.

When looking at others, I have no time to see,
When pronouncing my sentence, they have no time to breathe.
No time to think, no time for fairness.
I pass down the sentence, my judgements so careless.

Fair trials mean nothing, nor the rebuttals,
I know who you are, you're nothing but trouble.
You're nothing but crazy, ignorant, dumb,
This career is tough, my day is so glum.

At night I have to keep working, thinking, remembering,
I think and I think, my work is unending.
I been at this career for twenty-two years,
no breaks or vacations, just my gown and my tears.

I want a new position, something less stressing,
My thinking is skewed, I need a new profession.
Maybe a pilot, fireman, teacher,
Anything but this deplorable creature.

I decided today, to be something unique,
I just stop thinking of others, who cares what I think?
No more time stressing, no more with the ego,
I simply think of my shortcomings, change them, breathe more.

And They Told Me I'm Self-Absorbed

Too true. For those that don't know me, or some of the things I have to do day to day for my recovery; I have to go to treatment. Five classes a week, Monday thru Thursday, two hours at a time. Today was a very sobering day (not a play on words). I was told that I had an addiction to being self-absorbed by someone in class. Hit me like a brick. Unfortunately for everyone else, he was right. Fortunately for me, I believed him.

Through some of the things that went on in my early life, I developed a deep fear of rejection, coupled with a deep want for acceptance. At the beginning, it manifested itself in some positive ways; exceedingly good grades and behavior in school, helping around the house, etc. I found that it did not allow me to feel the acceptance that I craved. It did not allow me to feel the love that I so desperately wanted to feel. My main problem in this situation was that I was trying to derive my sense of value in myself from the praise and acceptance of other people. This continued, and still continues, up until this day. Hence the smack in the face today.

My mind has a funny way of lumping words together; Love, acceptance, attention. To a degree, they all mean the same thing to me. This is a very scary thing for an ego-maniacal, self-absorbed person. It places me in a position where I think I need to be the center of attention, hence allowing myself to become self-absorbed. The feelings of others cease to matter to me, all I care about is my own comfort. To continue on from a previous point; After I decided I was not getting the results I needed from positive manifestations of attention-seeking behavior, I found that there was more attention to be found in destructive, negative behavior. I won't go into details on all of the ways it affected my behavior, but I will say that I learned to make people laugh. This was one of my bread and butters. I found that I could make people laugh, I could be goofy, and people would accept me, some even seemed to like me because of that behavior.

I was hooked. I continued to act ion this particular way for as long as I can remember. I believe it started in close to first grade, but became a disruption towards the end of second. This is a deep seeded problem for me. Ask any teacher I've ever had thoughout my entire school career, they will almost assuredly tell you that I was a disruption. I even went to the length of becoming something worse than a clown, I became the trouble-maker. Everyone loves the bad guy, right? In my mind they did. And so the destruction and attention seeking continued.

Today, when this fellow said this to me, and was sincerely upset that I was taking away from his ability to learn, I had two choices; I could get angry, I could throw a fit, tell him to screw off, tell him why he was wrong, or, I could admit the truth and look at myself. I chose the latter. I am self-absorbed. I have a problem. What I believe to be the solution is to start understanding that I do not need to seek attention to gain acceptance, therefore allowing me to understand love is neither of those things. To go even further, I must be okay with myself, love myself, and stop thinking I need the approval of others to find my inner sense of worth. These things are all crutches that I have used to find something no external object, person, or place can give me. Satisfaction comes from within, not from those things outside.

This world is transient, it is passing away, it will not be here forever. Not the car, or the house, or the wife, or husband, or friend or family, the job or the new phone. They will all cease to exist one day. But my soul, my spirit, that is mine forever. If I do not learn to cherish it before my time here is up, I will never find the thing that I seek. I will never be able to truly love myself, therefore preventing me from truly loving those around me. That is all that matters here. That is the only thing that can change me, and consequently, the only thing that could ever change the world. Not a Beatle, but all we need is love.

Ripples of Choice

My word is my own, my action as well,
My behavior a reflection, there are times when I fell.
With words, I can shape, with action, I effect,
With behavior, I manipulate change and infect.

My life is a testament, to what, I know not,
However sour or sordid, I have a chance to be taught.
Shall I bring dark to the light or do the reverse is my struggle,
shall I continue the hurt, or erect new from the rubble.

My heart is the hero, my mind is the culprit,
I have the choice to love others, the world is my pulpit.
As I sing to my brethren, shout praise to my family,
my insanity angers, it screams for calamity.

Left to my own devices, I would have surely started war,
Left with help in crisis, I whispered peaceful roars.
My struggle is too great to fathom, but we shall surely try,
Your love has given me new wings, and I shall learn to fly.




Thank you to all those that have stood by me in the face of despair. For those that believed in me, and still do. I was given love until I could love myself. I only wish everyone could receive that. I am truly grateful to the people that have had a hand in my life, no matter how large or miniscule. I appreciate you all :)

Learning How To Live

For a good while, I have been living life in a way that wasn't really living. I used Drugs and alcohol to numb me from my emotions. Anytime I thought anything was going on that I didn't like, it was time to get intoxicated and forget about it. The insanity of it all was that although I felt better at the time, nothing ever changed, I was simply high or drunk for a brief moment, then back to reality. For a little while anyways. Then the same old routine, back to intoxication, not feeling, then reality. It became very tiresome. Not only that, I felt so hopeless when it came to my life situations. I would never admit that, because I was always "fine", how wrong I was.

This is more about the things I am learning, or have never learned rather. For example; How in the world do you have a relationship with a woman without being selfish and self-centered? How do you handle emotions associated with a relationship? If a problem arises, how do you talk to her without inspiring anger or sadness, and get the situation resolved in a way that both people feel good about? My emotions get out of control! And I start going off the deep end, feeling like I need to use or run away, so many things start going wrong.

I think one of my biggest problems is this; When I started using, everything had to be just like drugs and alcohol. Quick, easy, bring me pleasure, and do exactly what I want it to do every time. People being objects to be manipulated. That has caused me so much stress. I want to care about people, I want to show compassion and love to everyone around me. But sometimes my old thinking comes out and I become angry, or spiteful, or downright hateful. I really dislike that. I have to make daily amends, apologies to people because of some of my actions. I would be lying if I said I didn't have a problem with doing that. I have an ego, and it doesn't like admitting when it is wrong.

I'm starting to learn that people are not there for my amusement and pleasure. I'm learning how to have meaningful relationships. But I do fall short, quite often. And then I have to look at myself and my motives toward the person. Usually they are wrong. But it's all a part of learning how to live. I'm not sure if I ever knew how to love a person for who they were rather than what they could do for me. Even when I was very young, I remember thinking that in order to be loved I had to do something, achieve something. So my idea of loving someone has been skewed for as long as I can remember.

I have a huge problem when it comes to my emotional state. The smallest thing can send me into a whirlwind of emotion that I think the only solution to is getting intoxicated. When I feel overwhelmed, my first thought is that a beer will fix it, or that I need a joint, or whatever other drugs I could do, I want them. That's a problem lol. I'm trying to stay sober, and my first thought in any stressful situation is that I have to use. Luckily I haven't yet, and hopefully I won't anytime soon.

This was kind of a throw up session, but I wanted to get a piece of writing out this week, and this has been my struggle. One day I'll be less insane, on day I'll know a bit better how to live :) Today, I'll just keep learning. 

I love all of you, any feedback would be much appreciated, have a great day :)

To the Strong, We are Weak

Without a purpose, our path becomes an abyss,
Brush blocks our view, the trail is unfit.
Without compassion, we hurt, and pain is our bounty,
The dark is our waiting room, desolation our county.
Without love, we are deafened, blinded, and muted,
Where once was a smile, despair is exuded.

Showing one's love, compassion, and purpose,
What power in bringing an inner self to the surface!
To the strong, we are weak, and paradoxically, victors,
Loving those full of sorrow, thus tricking the tricksters.
A fool makes his life about himself, so weak and worthless,
True strength is in loving, compassion, and purpose.

So eat up your cakes, while you fatten and toil,
We share our bread, our harvest, our soil.
Men that are weak give without hindrance,
To the man that is strong, please ask for forgiveness.