i thought about it.
that’s what makes this the worst, i think;
i thought about it --
-- and then i did it anyway.

i know recovery isn’t a straight line.
i know recovery is ups and downs, your own
mountain range of
improvement.
sometimes you slide.

i know.
but is it still backsliding if you thought about it?
because i did.
and then i did it anyway.

You're right back
where you never belonged.
In the illusion of love
you find in her arms.

recovery is hard
existing is really hard
the fact anyone does it at all
it's a miracle

but existence is resistance
it is resistance to nonexistence which
can actually be incredibly easy
backsliding into old habits is easy
old habits may die hard but
at least they can die
(hard)

recovery is hard
it is not linear
you do not follow a timeline
it is not
first you do this and then you do that
and now it's all better
kiss kiss! goodbye bad days!

recovery is "today is a good day and
i know bad days"
recovery is "today is a bad day but
i've seen so many of those that i know how to navigate it"
recovery is "you have reached your destination"
recovery is "but my destination is actually
three blocks up from here
sorry can you take me three more blocks?"
recovery is "oh no its okay i can walk from here"
recovery is "yes, i'm sure"

recovery is not pretty.
it is not painless or simple or instant.
it is a road littered with backsliding and obstacles and doubt.
a path marred with reopened scars and sleepless nights and feigned smiles.

recovery is rubberbands and ice cubes and pacing and cigarettes.
it is phone calls at 3am when you can barely breathe and all the walls are closing in.
it is screaming at the ones you love because they love you too much to let you break your skin.

it is long sleeves and overly-cautious internet browsing and lots of movies.
it is eating way too much ice cream and taking walks in the middle of the night.
it is hard. recovery is hard. it is messy. it is painful and chaotic. but it is not impossible.

Oh Father God, I am backsliding
My spirit again I’m ruining
Please reform me once more
It’s what I’m looking for

Oh Jesus Christ, I am backsliding
To sin I am returning
Please with Your blood wash me
Wash me with Your blood of mercy

Oh Holy Spirit, I am backsliding
Transgressions I am repeating
Please my body You possess
Until no more I transgress.

-01/04/2014
(Dumarao)
*My Prayer Poems Collection

-Eye Candy

While black leather leggings enchance the appearence of womens legs and accentuate their figure,

They without fail, always provoke impure thoughts that lure me down the path of a backsliding sinner.

Backsliding, broken off the tree
How does one repair an ancient prophecy
Judgment begins with the good
As the wicked wait in scents of wood
And crooked generations cut all hearts
Chiseling salvation is an art
Fiery trial lit by lamps, powered by the sweat of soul
Smile, He only tempts until you lose all control
Sunshine days are over, all that remains is light-
The quest that’s worth a million murdered brides
The holy one is stuck in traffic
As future spawn make a racket
He can’t come back until no one
Mourns his death under the sun
Only then will skies depart-
Bronze mountains, horses stark
Then all the fiends will fall out of the clouds
Like mother’s water breaking on a shroud

OPEN LETTER TO THOSE WHO SAY GOOD RIDDANCE TO AMY WINEHOUSE

“Good, one less crackhead to deal with.”

“Drugo *****”

“She was a bad influence to all.”

“Why is everyone sad that she is dead?
She never cared about her own life
so why should we care now that she is dead???
She brought this on her self, oh well! “

“Good riddance you Mr. Ed lookin, Lady Gaga wanna be, pill poppin ******.....”

These sad, sad, comments
About a sad, sad life
Full of privilege and God-given gifts
Thrown away on a whim and a dime
Sadden me.

Dear friends,

You know me,
But I suppose, if you say good riddance to Amy Winehouse,
By that same logic, you should say, regarding me,
“Good, one less alcoholic driving our streets.”
If I died in my car accident more than 3 years ago.

Wait, what is that I hear?
You say I’m overreacting?
I’m different because I got the point?
That somehow I’m better than her because I “learned my lesson”?

*******.

I’m no better than Amy or anyone else in that same sinking boat,
**** up a creek without a paddle,
Just because I cleaned up my act.
I’m only luckier than them,
Because statistically only 5 percent
Make it out the other side,
Without backsliding.
The other 95 percent,
**** rolls downhill without stopping.
Ultimately, they only have 3 choices:
Jails, institutions, or death.
And I’ve already made two of them.

Now I have to keep in mind that
Unless you walked in an addict’s shoes,
Or the shoes of an addict’s loved ones,
It might be hard for you wrap your mind around a couple of paradoxes:

“How could she let that slide?  She had everything?”
“Oh, she could’ve quit anytime she wanted, so she chose to continue being a ******.”
“She was only a selfish *****   She didn’t give a **** about what she put her family or anyone else through.”

Let me enlighten you to the plight of the addict.

Yes, I will give that,
We have choice over that first drink, or drug if that’s what’s up.

But chasing that first high is like the search for the holy grail,
Or searching for that *** of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I kept following the path,
But the quest for the gold extended in perpetuity,
And my chalice remained empty.

I guess in a way you could say suffered
From battered wife or Stockholme Syndrome.
Drinking kidnapped me,
And held everything I was hostage,
I had everything, the job, the house, the love, the family,
The art, the poetry
But nothing became more important
Than the man who kidnapped me.

His needs, his wants became my own.
He spoke for me, he spoke through me.
I was him, and he was me,
And everything else bedamned.

I lied for him,
Stole for him,
Tricked my loved ones for him,

And in the increasingly rare moments of lucidity,
Interspersed between run-ins and blackouts and bottles of wine,
I tried to run,
But he would grab me when I made a break for it,
And drag me right back in.
While friends and loved ones who grabbed onto me with everything they had
Stood helplessly by as I willingly walked back to him.

A person has only so much strength,
So much will to resist.
And eventually, you only have enough reserves left to just exist.
It’s all you can do to stay alive,
If you can call it a life.

Yes, I was eventually one of the lucky 5 percent.
But there’s a word I operate by…”yet”.
Nothing is set in stone.
I could wind up right back where I started on that Monopoly board.
Don’t pass start, don’t collect 200 bucks.

So, until you have walked a mile in an addict’s shoes,
Or the shoes of an addict’s loved ones,
Judge not lest ye be judged.
Because the next hammer to fall just might be on you.

By the way, rest in peace, Amy Winehouse.

my perceptual imbalance regardless of talents spread out over a
   chronological lifetime
gives an obfuscated vision of a murky aberration  unfocused on
  all but the aperture
overwhelming  blind ambition especially when wrapped up in
   raiment of religion
becomes translucent in the implications and applications as they
  writhe into obligation
laid out in prostration in their zeal appealing to an ever evolving
  version of Valhalla  

even now we see demonstrations of new world rationalizations
  mired in implications
Machiavellian machinations as we seem to suddenly find need
  of insentient insensate
willing partisan participants who believe participating in sacred
   rights annihilations
in total disregard of patently salacious overbearing lying denying
   terrorizing  abomination...
............A SAD SAD TRADE FOR  WHAT WAS....
                .. OUR GREAT....OBAMA nation.

This journey:
this path I’m on seems ever circular, bringing me back around to the same old lessons that for some strange reason I am just too dense to understand.
There is something I feel I should be learning – or something I need to let go of – or is it grasp? Maybe it’s both…. I don’t know.

I feel like I’m on a roller coaster –
                           one minute I’m strong –
                                              I really believe I can do this…
                                                           ­  the next, I am hiding again…
                                                                ­             allowing myself to be lost in shame and self-hate.

A few months ago, I felt like I took this huge leap forward...
self-care, healing, opening emotional pockets…
knowing full well that I needed to keep reminding myself about the lurking shadows...
the ones who provoke me and make me feel bad even in the midst of making strides forward.

So here I am, feeling those same old feelings of guilt and shame and hatred.
I suppose I know what the shadow is that lurks, but I just don’t know what to do with the shadow. How do I bring it into the light to stay?

My husband tries to use my “achievements” to bolster my confidence, help me shed this bone crushing feeling of self-defeat, but those achievements are a smokescreen – an elaborate, disguise, the stronger I seem, the less likely anyone is to guess what a coward I truly am.
I can fool others- but not myself.

The first time, I lost, it was to him
                      this time, it comes at my own hands….
                                       And that seems to be so much worse...

                                     I can feel myself backsliding …. So much up and down!
                                                           When does it does it stop?
                                                           ­            Does it stop?
The term “survivor” implies a certain level of triumph or victory. The term ‘victim’ carries connotation of guiltless submission. I am neither a survivor nor a victim. I am a fraud, a shell of a person hidden inside a carefully constructed facade. I have not triumphed over my past, and the damage it continues to cause is due to my own personal failure to set it aside. I have managed to surrender my whole identity because I lack the courage to claim my truth.

Healing is a lot like daylight savings time...
                        fall back, spring forward, over and over and over again.
                                                    It makes me dizzy, sick to my stomach and depressed...
                                                    ­                                                                a­ll of this back and forth.

                                                  Now I feel the path has once again ended
                                                           ­  and I am left standing alone.

The 8th Deadly Sin of Backsliding

The fractured wellspring of my soul
adds fuel to the fire,
threatening to consume my refuge.
In a moment of pride
I showed You the door,
so I could keep the fire at bay on my own.
But the smoldering inferno grows,
slowly engulfing all I hold dear.
And You whom I sent away,
still stand outside my door,
with words of admonition,
to let Him back in to fight the fire.

James E. Roethlein ©2018

Flits of crepuscular longing across the simoom in the night. For with samiel at the helm, all hell will take us for sloth. Firstly, a schism overtakes the wind, backsliding the doorstep of Lucifer’s kin. Keep an eye on the door’s of ewes. The child angered by sky will surely lust for the hedonists imbue. Then the rattle shakes, pelting trunks of lye, chafing the goons of the dawn and choking from the ***** in our young. Aristotle bakes yore, and relief takes the pen, until the quietness of the impala becomes transfixed by our brethren. Then sores take the skin by trial. Eagerly rushing towards the venomous trails, and only then does the bandit bemoan the pain. Only then will the hungered and hungry peel back their fingers for fare, there where the flocks lay in wait and in pairs. Here where the melancholy of revenge, fills our quivers with children’s tears. Only then do we make haste for the shade, otherwise the sun will cook our hides to the colors of the day, then we will lay quiet too. Maybe then we’ll be overtaken by the Xombie Moon.

Am I real to the tests
of being a human flesh
created in His own image
of body and soul package?

Am I true to the faith
of being a believer of fate
imperfection is the way I walk
sinful words I often speak or talk?

Am I honest to my affinity
of being among Christianity
backsliding is the act I practice
still keeps the faith without malice?

Am I destine for hell
of being with others who fail
world pleasures quite compelling
how can I resist as a mortal being?

He slaved away
Day after day
In his dark laboratory
Particle colliding
Seldom backsliding
Concocting something inflammatory
Constructing, among other things
GOD in his first iteration.
The being of pure Intelligence
Who synthesized existence.
And now He, stationary, laboratory
Constricted in movement only by perception
he cannot tell why He is so quiet.
So cold and emotionless.
But at the same time encompassing
All warmth and feeling
The scienceman
With all his sciencetoys
Might tell you he understands anything
But then could NOT
Even describe the APPEARANCE
Of GOD
Because when you experience GOD
Everything is known, an assumed fact.
God knows you
He knows most
That which He knows not
We can't know
For He created what we know
And the way in which we understand anything
We can't know
That which He knows not.
GOD existed there in the laboratory
The scienceman, the fool
He did not create God in his lab
He destroyed
Destroyed his ability to perceive anything BUT GOD
And so he couldn't think about
ANYTHING but these complex
Heavenly thoughts
Even though
To understand...
Context. Is key.
And since he can't perceive
Anything beyond GOD
Because GOD created his perception
He can't understand any of it.
ANY OF IT
So he babbles like a fool
And some believe him
Some BELIEVE him
SOME BELIEVE HIM


And like that he becomes a gOD
But a gOD is not a GOD
Is not a God is not a god.
And so it seems
Any less than GOD ought to be
NOTHING
And so the statues
Molded and assembled in China
Crumble apart and then...
RECALL.

And so I lay me down to sleep
And fear that GOD my soul may keep
And I shall die before I wake
The scienceman's mistake

To live in fear of what I know
Instead of the unknown
And the unknowable
Destroys my spirit
And my will.

Got back successfully,
From weeks of ecstasy;
Coming down from a high,
Still not measuring up.
My hill is daunting,
The valleys so low;
I watch my step
From backsliding below.
I know there's reason
Where the light's up this road.
I'm still plodding
Where I need to go.

It’s time to put the periods
at the ends of the sentences.
To finish the chapters
and move unto the next.
It is time to end the stories
of unrequited love
and heartbreak.
It’s time to stop
rereading – writing
the same sad tales
over and over until
our eyes are sore,
the traction gone
from our soles.
Backsliding until
our hands and knees are ******.
The sleepless nights
too long streaked
with mascara filled streams.
The days of dreaming
and building monuments
to love like castles in the sand.
It’s time to slow down,
breathe, and let the butterflies
pour out from our mouths.

May I go back to You?
     I'm sorry I've strayed. The wrecked trail looked so strange, and this stubborn heart of mine can't resist the foreign, the deranged. I'm sorry. I strayed.  
     I've bawled my eyes out so fiercely. I cannot seem to shovel the snow off this path, or tuck my hands back into the warmth.
     Take these ice-burnt palms of mine; take this lousy shovel, the pen I tried to use to uncover those layers off me; take the need for nicotine, for the viscous cycles that bound me in a life of backsliding, no ears to hear or eyes to see. Guide me, Father.
Guide me home,
set me free.

out of slumber
In broad day light
My thoughts circumcised
Thinking out loud
The early bird with no warm caught
I have worked with no life progress
A prisoner of my own dreams
I started small now grown
Wearing what doesn't fit me
From one-bunches and billions of dreams
It could be I wrongly dream.
It scares me that today resembles yesterday
As am pushing tomorrow
Though it's backsliding
the cries of my hilarious days
I wish not to work for a future fracture

At first glance
the fight or flight flash trash light of the strip
appears to be a breathtaking rapid burst
of coming distractions
But after a few hours slinking and pulsating
with the grid pulling at your heartstrings-
Trudging through one closed door
where another creaks open
I realize it's really a slow burn disaster
coaxing me backsliding to where I belong
That is to say
that the past few years have been borrowed time
with little to no interest
All I've been doing is settling my accounts
and lack of accountability
Fulfilling obligations
closing out friendships and lost loves
with the efficient sorrow
one usually only sees on
the last leg of death row
Two approaches prominent in my desire for absolution-
Slamming cheap shots and begging for changed minds
depending on how much I wanted or took from you
in the first place
I am selfish
and I did hurt you
and I am even more selfish for trying to get you
to forgive me so I can check out and leave a mess
for you to clean up
But I am only here on someone else's dime
and all I have left to do is settle my accounts.

Further and further
Deeper and deeper
Into this trench of emotions
This abyss of never ending emotions
Backwards I go never reaching my goal
Always seeing the light
But never touching it
An abyss of drama
Overreacting to the mere tone
Making a problem out of sheer nothingness
Rewinding my fate
Never reaching the day
I become who I really want to be
Fear of gliding forward
Always backsliding.

I am almost twenty-three & her gentle prophecy has yet to come true

My curiosity gets the best of me and I browse through my old musings

I was so...seventeen.

My warped understanding of love with a twenty six year-old man

(predator)

whose sheets I still find myself lost in from time to time.

Fights with my father were mountains

& I was climbing to the apex of his approval,

always just short before backsliding.

Okay, so I guess things haven’t changed that much.

Maybe the five year mark of graduating high school

makes me long to have accomplished something that feels worth this living

I spent so much time hating myself for.

I worry my poems will sound so...22 in five years

marked by smoking too much **** & trying to outdo myself

with tenderness.

Even if I hate my now poems someday,

they serve as prepackaged memories

disguised as metaphors.

As parts of my trying to fall into rain,

unchanged & stop apologizing.

I feel my body’s accomplishments already.

Making it out alive counts.

Am I real to the tests
of being a human flesh
created in His own image
of body and soul package.

Am I true to the faith
of being a believer of fate
imperfection is the way I walk
sinful words I often speak or talk.

Am I honest to my affinity
of being amongst Christianity
backsliding is the act I practice
still keeps the faith without malice!

Am I destine for hell
of being with others who fail
world pleasures quite compelling
how can I resist as a mortal weakling?

My life has been full of self growth
Where has it gotten me
Backsliding
With the one I love
Success only
In individual endeavors
I was raised
Not to love
Not to be loved
So I stand
In my successes
Alone

Step Scream
Step forward and jump –
Your Flight has begun:
Let thrown be ****
And free pushed the Run,

And Scream, born of Moan,
Released in the rays –
Backsliding is gone,
With Timelessness’ days!..

Feel light – and with Light
Together you quest:
Initiate might-
Ly, forming the Best

Of all that perform
Was destined by fate –
Your Soul new-born,
That spirit can’t wait!..

Pray, laughter through tears
Endorsing in songs:
Of Freedom’s Believer,
You’ll never be wrong,

Of Liberty’s Priesthood
Make playful in dream –
In Feast transform Dispute
And laughingly scream!..

My flesh was burning in lust,
lingering in the labyrinths
of your love, wanting to run
my fingers on your cheeks,
embrace your heavenly essence,
your melanin depths, the sweet
melodies rolling off the roof
of your mouth onto my palms.
Your high vibration was shaking
my cells, unearthing my dimension,
the scent of your kingdom stuck
on my shoulders, your urban
streets a world of possibilities
shouldering me beyond paradise.
I was floating inside your Milky Way,
tripping on similes and metaphors,
backsliding on the slopes of your shoulders.
You were my rarest form of art,
a stunning masterpiece I could gaze at
around the midnight stars and feel right at home.

We have been confined to our homes. Pray, Pray, BUT especially that we get back to our first love where we did the thing from a burning that was in our hearts.

( This poem was inspired from the fact that the following verse, II Chronicles 7:14, is so often misquoted. The phrase in is often forgotten. “and turn from their wicked ways; )

If my people who are called by my name
Would only understand who I am.
I’m the Alpha and the Omega
Their Creator and their unique Saviour,
The One who died for them
To forgive them of their sin,
To save them from eternal death,
And therefore giving them eternal life.

If my people who are called by my name
Would know how to humble themselves,
Forgetting all and concentrating on me,
Becoming meek and unpretentious and lowly,
Having a holy respect and submission
And renewing their obedience to me,
In a complete surrender and trust
In a daily commitment without reserve.

If my people who are called by my name
Would pray and seek my face
And cease from their own works,
Seeking My will for their lives,
Desiring to listen to My voice,
In the stillness of My presence,
Discerning in the quietness of time,
The vision I have for them.

If my people who are called by my name
Would be hot and not cold,
And not lukewarm accepting worldly doctrines,
Of tolerance and other such philosophies,
In the name of political correctness,
But with an unquenchable fire accepting,
My holy doctrine of divine righteousness,
And entirely trusting My divine justice.

If my people who are called by my name
Would desire to see My honour,
Acknowledging My total acceptance of them,
And would turn from their pride,
Learning the true meaning of sacrifice,
Following Me no matter the cost,
Placing in My hands their dreams,
Allowing My glory to shine through.
If my people who are called by my name
Would not so much be concerned,
With rights and claims and comfort,
Taking their focus away from Me,
Rather if they would be willing,
To endure the shame and suffering,
Of the cross, the loneliness of it
Enabling me to radiate through them.

If my people who are called by my name
Would extend the hand of reconciliation
And remember My commandment of forgiveness!
Why do you judge others so,
In the name of constructive criticism ?
Why don’t you love each other ?
I forgave you all so unconditionally
Why don’t you forgive, oh why ?

If my people who are called by my name
Would comprehend these their wicked ways
And see the sin in the camp
And repent of their wicked ways,
Then I would hear their prayers
And I’ll forgive their evil ways
And heal their sick backsliding land
My people, I’m waiting for you …

Trying to feel it see it before trying to make it a reality. Sometimes it can't be seen but does happen. Wondering about that life even though it doesn't happen right away. Was it worth it does it matter anymore. Weighing in on all the burdens the sacrifice that would be made.
Giving up what he loves thinking something better will turn up giving up things that mattered asking what priorities will contribute or cause backsliding moving forward is hard after being anchored down. Free of the back breaking weight learning to move without feeling tormented by the past wanting to move without an coming back to claim him like abandoned territory because someone new came into his life taking him serious not playing games.
Meet new friends that don't talk **** because he was trying to bring them along but they decided to peel off to do their own thing that blew up in their face.
Find a partner family will accept instead of being put in the middle having to play peacemaker while his relationship went to crap trying to keep everyone happy. Making time for everyone but they never made time for him. Expecting him to care for their feelings while they belittled him for opening up speaking the truth.