The Ganges

Following this...



I never could drink.
But I never could say no to pie, butter, cream. A chip.
And self medication I think I understand that.
But I could never tolerate medicine, not for a second.
Which is why I don't take what I need to.
I have a no, no , no, switch resisting being controlled
By all of it.

I'll be reminded here of the poisoning in my life of Demerol.
When I went in a hospital with peritonitis, after a hysterectomy and got 17 gone days in a vein.
Doctor's orders.
Until I disappeared and took 3 years crawling away from how awful it felt.
Opiates. Yeah. i don'tmess wit them.
Pretty much it takes a long time to
Pull yourself out of poisoning.
So understand withdrawal. I understand the pain of those
Dark days because I had to do it.
With my kids, alone, with my work.
And all I did was fall over with a gastro bleed, after a surgery
After trying really hard for a week for care as infection grew
And in horrible though I hate to say it usual pain and wake up to pull
It out of my arm and then go home to be chased in dreams
By a devil, satan in my head so vivid christ
I woke up to sleep, I was protecting a child.
I knew we were both going to die.
But I wanted to protect her.
I still do shelter inside that nameless faceless child.
No doctor then would even speak to me.
Same now it seems.
And my husband felt his needs "weren't being met."
No kidding a******
Or as he said today, I don't do enough work.
And I work constantly.
(this sounds the voice interior of addiction , do you recognize it now?)


In college I had a time someone didn't even
Remember me after a nice evening of being charming.
Nothing really. I've seen it since.
Except that I so liked them and alcohol wiped my face away.
My name became someone else named sally.
And it was if there had been no day.
His parents were the same way, they did that.
His dad caught at work under the desk with
an awful person, not playing checkers.
His mom drinking from a thermos at school.
Sad and I saw it.

Put something in my head early on.
They were good people. Well, maybe not always.
And kind of not fully present. Well not after 5.
Very bright and capable but hurting too.
It's kind of hard to know you don't have your face.
But you really don't, I learned that.
And I've seen this in the lives of the kids I teach.
They are damaged by drinking, often brain damaged.
I'm teaching a child like that now.
He ran in front of a car.
He can't figure out not to take off running.
Can't name colors, can't order things.
It's all a jumble.
His mom was self medicating away her teen angst.
So he is here, but not really.

I walked through San Diego last night
Everyone was in the clubs, just jammed with strutting men and undressed women.
It was virtual and so very loud.
And in a few hours full of arguments, punches, bouncers, police,
Ready for another saturday night and i ain't got nobody
As the brain was blurred into feeling no pain.
and maybe getting a little
I was walking and mostly avoiding people walking into me or falling.
Future parents. Meeting special someone.
Bars with licenses to get everyone happy.
Or if they are pregnant happy and dumb damaged kids.

And I was walking. It's really a kind of poison.
I wish it wasn't.
And that it would help.
So I went and watched this because it was something
I read about. I don't know how to help
This video virtual person nor why he would be hoping, but he is.
For speaking about how he stumbled through it. Brave that.
I just kept thinking.
If we made life a little different maybe this wouldn't
Get so extreme. Not hurt like this. Maybe.
Maybe we could not allow it to be so hard either.
Oh...my poem. I finally got here to it.

The Ganges,
for a friend


Opened up my hotel fridge for a water
Little bottles colored like ornaments,
there it was flowing like the Ganges.


Exactly like the filth in the Ganges.
One drink of that is a poison too.
But it alludes to the mysteries of mind and man,
Soul travel and release.
Freedoms and prisons.
A place to bury the dead and try to wash away
The sins of your fouled living.
Filled with the sewage wastes of life
Dumped into the sanctity of your mind.
Takes you where you do not know.
Where you cannot want to go.
You ride the river Ganges my friend.
With the stench of the filth of our need to escape on this river
All over you.