We all hated music class in
6th grade.
We clowned around
constantly.
The only thing good about
it was Miss. Reed. She was a
nervous sort.  She wore her
hair in a **** bun, there were
always a few hairs that escaped
her beret.  She wore these big
horn-rimmed glasses.
Sat on her desk and waved her
hands around like she was
conducting an orchestra of
idiots.

She became animated and
moved from side to side, up
and down.
C major children!
I always tried to
look up those tweed
skirts she wore.
One time, I thought I saw her
bush.
I told my friends, and they called
me a liar.

Frank McManus said,
"Alright, wise guy, what did it
look like?"

I said,
Our cat, Muffin, just had kittens.
There's this chubby black fuzzy one,
we call her Grumpy.  That's what
it looked like."

"Oh, you're full of ****, a broad like that
would wear *******.  What if she had a
period and bled all over?  They'd fire
her for sure."

We used to sing that old song, Molly Malone.
Well, I had my best friend who sat at the
desk right in front of me, and no ****,
his name was Wally Malone.
One day, after school, he cornered me in the
bathroom.
"If you scream, sweet Wally Malone and
that **** about cockles and mussels in my
ear one more ******* time, I'm gonna sock
you right in the mouth."
I always felt bad for the woman in
the song, dying of fever, and then haunting
the town.

During the last class before summer, we were
being especially wild.
Miss Reed said,
"Am I addressing a 6th-grade class?"
I said, "No, we dress ourselves."
I knew I should have been a
comedian instead of a poet.
I sure miss that kitten, Grumpy.

Place complacent
Goal adjacent
Stationary travel

Looking forward
Tracking outward
Soothing inward
Riding grounded

Freshing breathing
Pace increasing
Mind obeying
Ease emerging

Every sneaker orbit
an antidote

Every heavy leg revolution
spreading lulling
warm calm

Every pushing movement
a granted request
for stillness

I don’t find it hard to be sober.
Being social and sober
that’s the hardest part.

It seems like everyone has a vice.
They call it “Cali sober,”
but I can’t do that either.
If you’re masking pain with anything,
you’re not sober.

I stopped drinking on the road,
living a life of quiet solitude.
Hotel rooms, empty diners.
I’m not the type to drink alone.

Even eating at the bar feels heavy,
lonely beneath the hum of televisions
and clinking glasses.

I have friends.
But when they drink,
I shrink.
I always want to leave.

I’ve always been anxious,
but now it’s sharper
more present,
more real.

It’s been a year
since my last drink.
Twelve months passed quickly,
but the pride remains.

Clarity came soon after,
clear as the sky after rain.
But being social
still feels like walking into a storm.

Because everyone drinks.

I’m not the one to call them out
when they get loud,
when they stumble,
when they slur.
But I no longer want to be there.

So I stay home.
Alone,
more than I’d like.

Searching
for someone
who sees the world
the way I now do.

I find myself
on the outside looking in,
like standing on a porch
at someone else’s party,
hand raised to knock.

I peer through the window:
laughter, smiles,
cheers rising like music.

But I don’t knock.
I don’t go in.

I didn’t stop drinking
because I had to.
I wasn’t destroying myself,
not exactly.

But in hindsight,
alcohol lit too many fires
I spent years trying to put out.

And that,
that’s the hardest part
of being sober:

Living in a world
that drinks
like it breathes.