Get to a meeting.
Play the tape forward
Know what I’m facing.
Down in a funeral
parlor basement.
Sleep all day.
Wonder where the day went.

Play the tape.
Keep playing it.
He was doing good,
but then he got basted.
He looked happy, then sadder,
then the pavement.
Lonely as ever,
the day came and went.

Another alcohol dream,
get to a meeting.
First it was weed,
then it was a disco.
Girls letting it go,
thong song and Sisqó.
Alcohol and weed.
Where did the year go?

Another dream about a life
he knows he can’t manage
Sick on the floor,
near a toilet bowl.
24 hours, 24 to go.
Recovery is a journey
out there in Soho.

Addiction isn’t
just having it,
it’s craving it
when it’s not in you.

Looking at the things
you created and slowly
letting it slip through
More anger management
and medication,
Wishing it was
something else then,
the dreams of an addict.

Another dream where
it’s in you,
and you’re with them.
Another sip of bourbon,
onto the stage then.
Another time thinking
while sick with the venom.

Thank God for this
writing thing.
It’s the only way
to deal with the dreams
of an addict and
an alcoholic.

I want so much more,
find less more often.
Want Boston, got sacked
into a basement apartment.
Far from open mics
and people, just a Speedy
and a free throw.

Wondering how
it can go from
sleeping to sequel.
Play the tape,
get to a meeting.

That lack of sleeping
and weed dreaming
turns to alcohol
and weed feening.

Better to be
manning the storm
then becoming the storm.
A lapse of seeing
is believing.
Get to a meeting.

 

Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly. His third book, Train of Thought 2: Almost Home is available now at the Oddball Book Store.