Here's to trying to write after all these years
after all my wrongs, all my fears
just for this moment to finally feel alright
you have grown, you put up a good fight
you adapted a love for beer and long walks
you've learned to open up and have those necessary talks
you sang all those sad songs and found happy ones
you've even learned that not every battle needs guns
life didn't come with instructions
no please follow as shown
the beauty of life is figuring it out on our own
Here's to breaking your shell and seeing more sunlight
you can stop now, you put up a good fight.

At 7:54,
On July 17th 2023.
I embraced a new chapter,
embracing sobriety.

I took this stand through heartbreak,
Felt the pain each and everyday.
Refused to let my spirit,
be distracted and led astray.

2 breakups tested my strength,
but I held on so very tight,
For July 17th,
marked the start of my new fight.

In the depths of my despair,
I nearly chose to give in.
But a flicker of hope kept burning,
burning deep within.

So here's to the battles fought,
and the victories I have won,
To the resiliency within,
to never be undone.

For now, Sobriety's my gift,
a chance to truly thrive,
Chasing dreams, embracing life,
Thanking God I’m still alive.

A tuber of sobriety
sprouts in the mind
It swells and thickens
from a root to a vine

A tendril meanders
and wavers
but all the while
still climbs...

The impossible
becoming possible
with discipline
and time

Night comes on like
an old hound lumbering
in from the field.
I don't fight it.
I'm getting too old.
I sit with pen in hand,
and wait for the
darkness to show
me something.

I think about vaginas and
Ireland and fish that
hunt a t night.
I think about
Bukowski and
Beethoven, and the
*******, and a kernel
of corn.
I think about my
life and this night, and
how it is better than
those near-death years of
caterwauling and chaos;
drunk by the river, lonely
as a glass snake.
I was living to drink, and
didn't give a **** about
anyone.
I was searching.
I found it
when the light came.

If only I could summon the will to banish my daemons;
Exorcise the rot that for too long has brought me low;
Waged a war unseen and unheard by the outside;
Inside, a mutinous cacophony of a ****** battlefield;
Where the parts of me unfouled by corruption, weep;
Tears of crimson blood run down as flowing rivers rage;
Anger, that the current refuses to change its course;
Sadness, that I was the one who had diverted destiny;
Swept away by tides no mortal man can hope to shake;
Trapped, like mighty Atlas, beneath the weight of fate;
An unfortunate purgatory of endless indecision;
A fear to see myself beyond the scars I have caused;
Calloused, my pessimism knows no boundaries;
There can be no going back to brighter days;
When days are comparable only to the blackest night;
Sunrises carry the gravitas of the setting sun, reversed;
Life, loses the beauty that once inspired the muse;
Leaving me feeling empty, lost on 'oft forgotten seas;
Praying for Charybdis to churn and drown my daemons;
Finally setting me free from this self imposed slavery;
Shattering the chains holding my past to my present