Sobriety: Day 0
I don’t know why this time was different
other than time, air & light that it is, was
filling less of me. For fifteen years I was a tick
that if pulled would pucker the skin before
the neck severed, head still buried & sucking
a last second or two, unaware the wine-red
blood had nowhere to go.
The Rioja In the back of the pantry had aged
since our first year of marriage. Like equity
& intimacy, so easy early on, we’d kept it wrong.
So when we opened the vinegar it had become,
you stopped at a glass while I finished the bottle.
On principle, I told myself. Tomorrow
I’m quitting. I’m quitting tomorrow.
Physical
Sobriety: Day 77
My doctor holds a vial of my blood up
to the light like a kaleidoscope, turns it,
shakes it, then hides it in his fist.
He makes a finger gun with the other hand
and shoots it. When he opens his fist,
it’s gone. He pulls it back into the world
from behind my ear and pours my blood
into a dutch oven which he bakes for
a few minutes while he waves a divining rod
around my torso. “How’s your spam
filter?” he asks. I put my hand on my side.
“I can’t really feel it anymore.”
The timer dings and when he lifts the lid
the whole clinic smells like goulash.
“Your late autumn light has stabilized,”
he says, my improvements perplexing him.
I inform him that I no longer partake.
“Ah, that would do it,” he says.
“You should also limit your intake of flattery.”
Not really a problem, I tell him.
“I can order a CT of your lusts if you want
but check with your insurance first.”
Here, he turns serious and meets my eyes
with a practiced air of pity.
“I’m afraid this means you’re probably
going to live quite awhile longer.”
I tell him I understand and begin rehearsing
how I’m going to break this to my family.
Islands
Sobriety: Day 84
Driving home from outpatient, a cry from nowhere pierces the hum. It’s my own gut-shot voice trailing blood across the windshield & dash, but I’m still surprised by it. Anxiety controls my sounds and movements like a cordyceps fungus controls an insect. More cries rush the hole made by the first so my throat becomes a fountain filling the cabin with locusts that die in mid-air and pile into drifts on the passenger seat. I’m alone, but I imagine someone watching my breakdown like I was a character in a show, because I can’t seem to process my emotions without involving someone else. This observer is more human-scale than twenty years ago when my wailing would have been prayer. I think the shape of these sounds is holier. Not supplication so much as islands erupting from an ocean. They will one day be habitat. The maps will need changing.
Freeze Tag
Sobriety: Day 90
You’re told it's a benchmark. Like a toddler
pointing. Practically developmental.
A sign the brain is knitting together,
picking back up where it left off.
“Maturing stops at the point of addiction,”
as if the brain had been caught and rooted in place
in a game of freeze tag, waiting for someone
to crawl through its legs. You shouldn’t be so
offended. You’re the one who would look at
your wife and tell her with solemn sincerity,
uncapped marker still in your hand,
that you didn’t draw on the wall.
And like a child, you need recognition
so you text “90 days!” and when she texts back
a single emoji—meager scrap for the gaunt street dog
your soul has become—the anger you’ve nursed
in dark rooms burns its way out. You complain
that no one is praising you for what you’re not doing,
and are caught off balance when she gives it right back,
telling you how long she’s been running,
circling your unresponsive statue,
watching for any chance to unfreeze you.
Pink Cloud
Sobriety: Day 146
It was supposed to happen by now.
The dopamine fields strained to collapse
were supposed to flare and blossom to life,
if only briefly, like a wildflower bloom in
Death Valley after the rarest of rainfall.
Not a sustainable harvest, but a promise
of something worthwhile. The clouds are
gunmetal gray and the field crunches under
foot but if I just keep walking the
moisture regime may eventually change.
Topography may be more forgiving.
The coins in my pocket more lustrous.
The people I meet will still care about coins
and none will remember the things I’ve done.
