To the Point of Reconciliation
Written By Edward Storm
This poem is for all of those who get back up.
Part 1-
I will let you be the judge,
By you I refer to my reader,
My audience,
And for me to be real
My family my friends my females of my relationships
I feel that they have already judged me and damned me
By my reactions to dealing with all the losses
I have been dealt in my life.
Their verdict doesn’t have anything to do
With how much fault I have in me becoming what I am today.
Even if it were totally unavoidable
Nothing changes the fact that I am too much now for them to handle.
I’m a liability, an outlaw on the run, something rotten in the frig
A pregnant teenager of sorts–
My father turned away last,
But in the strangest of ways.
He loves me but he’s scared of the heartbreak
And trainwrecks that I have brought with me
My destructive force gaining strength with each passing year,
I think that he worries that the stress will kill him,
So he doesn’t talk to me any more on the phone,
Nor in person,
But he will email me but have the balls to address no elephants
He will sent me thousands of dollars if I need it,
Just to avoid discussion
Of the wreck and waste my life has become.
I guess you would have to say that
its some really weak minded and pathetic behavior
Unsuitable of a good father
But my old man is truly old now,
Deep down I understand that I am a lot to take
And he lost the love of his life of the same condition
Yes as bad as my mother was I am worse
If anyone ever embodied their last name,
I certainly do,
As you will see in the pages to come.
This very book of poetry will probably need a label
Spelling out the dangers of even reading something
By this recking ball of a human being that I have become
A threat for my audience to read,
So be careful you may be in danger
And read my poems from your storm shelter
Tornado shelter,
Stay underground when I come through on a book tour,
That especially goes for any girl over the age of twenty something,
Believe me fathers as lovable as I am when you meet me
You don’t want your daughters anywhere near me.
Part 2-
ne might say that my life has been
Filled with more loss than most
Some pretty heavy sorrow,
Some of this loss is
not my fault,
I didn’t react in a health way to
What I was dealt,
Some is my fault,
Because I didn’t react at all
To the loss,
I just kind of stopped everything.
If this life were baseball,
You’d say that I struck out
WIthout even swinging,
My bat just sitting on my shoulder.
Any human reaction to a
Can’t be blamed on another person,
Can it?
I mean,
If your dog dies,
and your reaction is to start crying,
Who could possibly say that
The crying is not your own fault?
This is just an unfair fact of life is it not?
Part 3-
My the lovable Professor, The Lovable Father
Why do so many single mothers fail to raise their children
In an effective way that gives them the tools they
Need to do all of the basic things in life and stay above water.
Why I ask?
Well, liberals will have you believe that single parents
Fail because they only have one income
And that’s not enough to live on in today’s world.
And poor people fail to raise successful children
Nearly 100% of the time,
But I will tell you this,
They are wrong.
Let’s take a personal hero of mind Dr. Ben Carson–
was raised by a mother who was illiterate and no father at all
In on a room Detroit shanty,
And out of that poverty came a brain surgeon presidential candidate.
I know its not common but one parent can do the job,
We all know this and have probably seen it.
Its not the money its the missing duality of the mother and father
Mechanism that is so profoundly missing.
Its why so many males
raised with no father
have well developed maternally nurtured qualities–
they are ladies men usually and they have strong artistic voices,
But they can’t get off the couch to get a job that they don’t like,
Cause its men who are known to grind it out they take pride in it–
And this is where the missing dad was supposed to take over.
My father was doing just fine until I lost my mother at age 15,
I was almost to the finish line but not quite,
And I didn’t ever learn the last things that a good mother teaches her son,
They seem minor but they are not.
How to stay true to oneself and not love the girl too hard and too much,
Because you see
All women know that type of over the top love is an unattractive quality,
But more than that it is dangerous to the young lover,
The adult lover,
They can become lost lovers broken lovers and useless lovers
No matter how good they are at the feminine mechanisms like
Being intimate, Earning big incomes or communicating,
If the man loves her too much,
He will be crushed and made useless by the avalanche of love he has started.
Part 4-
Its funny that when you start making big money
People come around asking for advice on life
As if you have everything figured out.
Sometimes it’s even people that you used to ask
For advice on the big stuff.
Fuck, what a pain in the ass you think,
What I am supposed to tell this unsuccessful fuck,
I mean “work harder” that would help you lazy fuck!
No, I prefer to act like I was flattered
Then give them a load of fluff and verbal diarrhea
Like all of the people I ever asked for advice gave me.
It would be one thing if I had followed my dreams and made it,
But I hadn’t and I thought it showed
But I guess it didn’t.
These people who at one point I thought were smart or with it or had it,
They clearly don’t.
Asking me for God damned advice–
What do they see me doing that’s impressive working 90 hour weeks
Binging on alcohol and take out every night,
Dating the most beautiful ugly women that the world has ever known
But I guess they don’t see those things very much,
They just see what I show them–
Which is like judging a house to be in good shape
From the facade you see when you drive by,
So I guess I shouldn’t think them to be foolish for thinking me together,
Or Admirable,
They don’t see that the paint it peeling off all the walls on the first floor,
The bathrooms are outdated,
and the basement is totalled filled with mold from flood damage.
Part 5-
I didn’t necessarily notice that I was giving up on my life
See, it comes over very gently like.
One day you just say something like “I don’t need to pay that bill”.
Then maybe a week goes by and nothing happened when you didn’t pay it
So you don’t return the messages of the girl who you had liked dating
But was so demanding on your schedule and you didn’t want to go out every night.
Well then,
You got out of that break up easily and you the boat is gone but you
Didn’t really use it much anymore anyway since the divorce.
Damn, you say, is it that easy?
I don’t think I will fly to Illinois for Christmas like I said I would.
What’s the point of getting another dog to replace Buckley,
He’ll be so much work to walk everyday and expensive when you have to leave town on business,
I don’t need a dog.
Then you stop getting all of your favorite magazine,
Netflix, hell why do you really need a kindle unlimited subscription
And you don’t need to get a Christmas tree they get needles
Nope,
I will just be with me this year by myself,
I still got my best friend my best friend is always here,
You say as you look down at the bottle in your hand warmly.
Part 6-
They say its a progressive disease and I finally must admit that it is.
Not only does it just get worse and worse with time
At some point in time I crossed an invisible line
Went over the edge
Whatever you want to call it that doesn’t matter,
The fact of the matter is that I changed.
I have never been one of those people to just have a few at the bar,
Or go home early on a school night,
I have been the opposite of that my whole life.
But as much as I drank it worked for me in the sense that
It did not limit me enough for me to not get what I wanted out of life.
Maybe I would have been a straight A student in college instead of Bs
Maybe I wouldn’t have blown so much money eating out and at bars
But that was part of me, part of my personality,
Whatever I gave up to that I could party like I did it was not
Anything that I deemed very important.
Slowly though it started to not work.
I would arrive to work way late,
I’d get too drink at the the baseball game with me sister and nephew
And she’d have to drive home.
My blood pressure was a little too high.
The neighbor heard my girl and I yelling drunk in the backyard one too many times and said something.
I missed work entirely without calling in.
I didn’t make it to a date.
But mostly people just get a kick of hanging around someone who is far to drunk,
Its like taking care of a sick child but worse.
And over time the people in one’s life start to vanish,
But it happens slowly and those people who disappeared can
Be replaced by more tolerant drunks from the bar.
The life you once had fades away slowly,
And the fact that you’re drunk when it’s happening makes you even less aware.
Part 7-
In and out and into these rooms of AA and NA
Just to get loaded again the next time my stressed mind snapps like elastic
Your therapy appointment has reached rescheduling limit
Is the message I get from the automated dialer.
But at least I am trying is the only positive thing that I can say about myself,
What’s gonna happen if the next catastrophe hits
and I stop?
It hasn’t happened yet it probably never will–
I say to myself
Polishing off the last one in the 12 pack.
Part 8-
Maybe they can get drunk one night maybe even get drunk two nights in a row
And make it to work just fine and barely miss a beat.
But you can’t anymore and they judge you.
Why can’t I get drunk after work at the bar with my friends like I used to
And still make it to work in the morning?
I keep trying and trying and trying to do it like I used to
And maybe 9 times out of ten I am ok I can do it fine
I am even early to work and they don’t even notice the hangover but I am ok,
But then there always comes that time when I am not ok.
I am a mess. day
How bad a mess you ask?
Well, I am not going to work that’s for sure,
I’m in the bathroom early shooting back asprin with a warm bottle of beer
and I’ve already decided that I’m not going in
So I head to the freezer for that bottle of vodka
And I’m drinking it straight on ice before the sun even peeks over the horizon
No lemon no lime
I am in bed with the TV watching the stocks tick by
Wondering what I can move around to miss the day
But I am already feeling better why can’t I just work from home every day?
But then a few hours later I wake again and I am still in bed
But this time at least the vodka is already in the glass by bed,
Its a little sweaty but still cold and it goes down nice with
The depression and tired head
That is so hard to keep up
So I let it lay back down
And drink with my head propped up.
Part 9-
There’s this new girl in your life and she gets high too.
You didn’t expect to really ever date her but you kinda just woke up one morning
and she as already moved in (cause you did her a favor and let her crash for awhile after she got evicted from her place),
And here she is, skinny arms skinny legs jet black here like she just stuck her hand on one of those static electricity machines,
Right here all cozied up next to you in bed.
Oh darn it, what have I done,
That’s what you think when you wake up and have some alone time sober,
But she wakes up so the alone time is over and before you can finish the thought
That maybe you moved way way too fast again,
THe two of you are not feeling so hot cause you haven’t had
Your morning tray of fentanyl and yogurt and fruit.
It’s a light breakfast like always,’
Maybe this is why everyone comments that you are getting too skinny.
Part 10-
I feel so good when I’m with you sweetheart,
Its like you understand me so much more than anyone else every has.
I can just be myself,
Why do they care so much that I am getting high,
They don’t even know for sure anyway that I am,
Its just speculation.
I know the interrogation is coming soon
but I won’t have it I’m not even acknowledging them,
Its just me and you baby,
Just us,
And they can wait forever for me to call them back,
You’re the one who is always here for me not them.
Who goes and gets me the shit I need when I’m feeling sick?
Who says that “she doesn’t care either”
That’s my girl you’re my girl baby.
Part 11-
The reason that she is always there for you,
Is simply because she is always there.
The girl never goes anywhere,
She never does anything.
But she’s got that redish blonde hair
and she’s so confident when she takes off her clothes
Staring at you as if shes’s going to eat you alive,
And she does.
You can’t imagine that you taste as good as good as she does but you are ok with it.
Nothing tastes as good as she does.
Part 12-
My Love in the Kitchen
The girl is beautiful with her straight hair so dark and long,
Her tanned skin and the pen in hand on paper.
She sits at the kitchen table with the gray light of early morning
Falling on her very weakly but enough that no electric light is on
She is always so serious when she works on the paper
With her thin and long neck
Holding up her cheeks, thin nose and dark almond eyes.
She doesn’t see me yet and the world is hers for the moment.
I will come in and with almost no effort flick the light switch
With my finger and everything will be changed.
I think I will wait awhile here so I can not ever forget,
How lucky I am to be a man
Who has a girl like this in the kitchen.
Part 13-
I won’t forget the winter of 22'.
So many people have left my life for good,
There was Chace with the the stroke at age 28 mixing
Blues and xanie bars.
Zach blew his head off and he wasn’t even 30.
And now a few of my very favorite friends are locked up
For more than five years on possession of narcotics charges.
That’s not it.
Nico blew his brains out after shooting off his gun at
His ex girlfriend Nikeeh and holding that heat
Up to my temple for a five minutes that seemed like
A lifetime.
Later people said he got what he deserved and asked if I was happy
I wasn’t.
I was just left feeling shaky and sick,
My heart starts to race ever time I think about it,
I wonder if it always will?
That wasn’t enough for me to get off these fucking pills though.
Am I hell bent on dying for these little fentanyl blue thirties?
Am I?
I didn’t think it would be this hard,
My closest friends and I,
All we do is procrastinate.
Waiting for our fate to be sealed up I guess.
What if I lost Mary I think all the time,
The only friend I have had through this whole entire experience.
Maybe I’d blow off my head,
IDK.
Part 14-
That day comes when you have stopped caring altogether
And finally you know it
Everyone had been screaming it at you for so long,
Its a reality finally.
“Are you just going to sit here getting high while we lose the apartment,
and you lose your car, jesus, do something!:
I don’t want this life at all,
I don’t want to be an addict, I don’t want to be sober,
I don’t want to go to work, I don’t want to stay home,
I don’t want any of it at all none of it.
I want to get high.
Part 15-
Now it’s all up to you,
Do you still want something big and something special with this life?
Cause no one really thinks you can do it anymore,
No one is gonna get angry that your talent is being wasted
To them it’s been wasted already,
You are down for the count.
So what do you want?
All the pressure is off,
You can be a drug addict forever,
You figured out how,
Want us to clap our hands for you?
Part 16-
So I am here in beautiful and sunny Desert Hot Springs
California.
California is a like a the finish line for boys like me from the Midwest,
But this isn’t the type of finish line that I have in mind.
I didn’t get,
I didn’t understand that they weren’t going to fix me here.
This is just where it all starts, at inpatient rehabilitation is what they say.
They tell me to leave if I want to, to just walk out the door and not to come back
If I don’t want to me here which of course I don’t want to me,
But I do want to change and this change starts here it seems.
This is at least one way to change,
One possible road to victory.
What is my victory?
You see my dear counselor, defining victory is difficult,
Certainly not just to be sober and sober is victory?
“Yes.” she says.
What if I am not happy, what then?
“You will be happy, much happier than you are now.”
This is going to be easy.
“Try it then, what’s holding you back?”
Part 17-
I have a heart full of fire again
This is the last night I’m here
This is the last night I swear
I’ve got a heart full of fire,
I’ve got a heart full of fire I swear,
I’m one thousand stories up above the city that never sleeps
Stuck in a head that never creeps just walking,
Walking on the wire,
You get in love and you’re in the deep.
Momma I never been in this deep before
Love is as scary as it is thrilling
I think that
I’ve got a heart that’s crying
Beating wrong
I’m lost in love and full of fire,
I got a heart full of fire I swear.
Wrapped up
Wrapped up in gasoline and paper
Layed down and lit
Layed down and lit up every night
Lit up every night
Then back on the wire,
Gotta balance her,
I gotta be on her all day
So high above the city,
That city never sleeps.
Come down into the flame,
Be reborn with me hot baby
I’m a hot boy
And I live in these flames
Come down in the flame,
Our hearts our the same I swear.
This heart’s full of fire,
It’s full of fire I swear
What’s good baby?
You used to burn so hot with me
I’m carrying the torch
You can carry it too
You can carry it sleepless
You can carry it hot.
Part 18-
So I am back it.
I fell down, I fell down again, I fell down a third time,
I don’t know how many times I have fallen down now,
I don’t know how many times I have gotten back up.
But do know one thing–
This life is worth fighting for,
I do it for myself yes that’s number one.
I do it for the friends I have lost that maybe
One day I will get back
I do it for the friends I’ve lost I can never get back,
I do it for the family out there who hasn’t quite lost track of me,
I do it for these poems,
For all of you reading who know what I am talking about
Deep in the gravitational pull of addiction
The magnetism of relapse,
To those reading who are finally putting it all out there,
The entire embarrassing mess of defeat and failure.
Just remember one thing please that I am saying as I leave you,
You don’t have to do it alone and you can’t ever do it alone,
There are people with soft hands and big ears in every town on this Earth,
To catch you,
To listen to your story.
Part 19-
The sadness I shrugged off
The sadness that I shrugged off
Was once my calling card my achievement my defense
My weapon–
And we all need weapons because we are born into this wild life
With none and this place is filled with animals trying to eat
They don’t eat each other though sometimes it might be more humane.
My weapon has always been the sadness.
This weapon keeps me running.
I don’t let myself sit down until I drop from exhaustion,
If I find myself in bed at night tossing and turning
I get up and I search for whatever is going to tire me
I put a road under my feet
I put the sweat on my skin
I put heat on sex
I hum with urgency.
But no one can keep this up without slipping
Into the past,
Into the sadness.
When I do I pinch my skin
Get angry and bring it with me as fuel,
Then I am back at task,
Like it never happened.
Part 20-
The Bomber Pilot Words
The words are right on that big edge
On the corner of my dried and weathered lips
They want to fall out so badly and take
The long solo march into existence
But no sir no no no,
Not today.
Not on this day
Cause it doesn’t feel right.
And all I can go on now is feel
And touch.
But don’t worry,
I was born with more touch than they can ever learn
And you wanna root for the better man?
Well that is me I promise with all of my heart,
We all know that a female as great as her only deserves
To be with a man who promises with all of his heart,
She’s got all of it,
The whole beating thing.
See,
I have learned almost everything in life the hard way
And I loosely let so many words fly
And often not fly too well anyway.
But I have learned in the hardest of ways
That these sacred words I am waiting patiently
To utter
Must be timed like the bomber pilot
Times his cargo release.
The bomb can deliver peace at last
All over.
But using such tactics to deliver
At this point in the game
It must be dropped with the
Deepest of thought and precision,
For I am going to kill the dreams
Of many many men when I release that
World splitting device.
I am going to start a long chain of chatter
And strong opinion when I do
The unthinkable and with both my fingers crossed
Drop just a commonplace three words
Words that are used often and wrongly and
Have caused more pain than can be counted,
Even before to this very
Nervous eyed most beautiful female
That I am positive I’ve come to completely desire
Yes oh yes
I am going to say them just for her
Ordered and slow like good soul
And straight into her eyes with
All of the battle rattled courage
The reason war is declared
And I guess one might say that I am losing
This battle and this whole war
And they think that
Probably I will go gently
Quietly into my retreat.
I am backed in the corner after all
Have I done all I have done
Just to get slowly pushed into
A lonely vanishing act again,
But nope not on this chessboard you have
Never seen before.
The king, that is me,
I’m the last left on my side
Surrounded by enemy force
But these guys have totally forgotten
That I have a power left that they
Once used to clear the whole board
Of forgotten men and start the reign over her.
That king she stands by now
Well she stands by him for a reason
That’s for sure and yes I might be crazy
To think that I’ve got the type of explosiveness
Necessary to send her flying away from
Him and right into the arms of me,
The creator of the very key
That can start her only engine.
The timing of this is the most important thing
I am so damn impatient now
I’ve never felt so exhausted by thoughts
Filled with such passion and brightness.
Or maybe timing doesn’t mean a damn thing anymore.
Maybe she knows and prays that my bomb run is coming.
She’s ready to run
Run straight from the blast sight
Straight and ready for that spot she
Can spend an eternity
That began with the most serious prayer ever then
“I love you.”
Yes, my true love,
“I love you.”
And thank you for standing by me,
Your love is ever reaching.
-
This is a rough draft of sorts, please forgive mistakes, I would very much appreciate your feedback.
#addiction #dream #edwardstorm #poem #poetry #poetryisnotaluxury #poetryisnotdead
