one more thing,...

This piece of poetry was inspired from a chapter in my past. I was lucky that God gave me sense to get up and leave. Not everyone can do that. In the midst of a relationship with an addict I got lost for a moment, until I got a hold of a pen and paper and these words came out and gave me the strength I needed to leave.  I am posting it in hopes that if you need that same strength or courage my words may inspire you. 

My farewell

My heart has never felt such pain

Pain so great that I waited for my chest to explode 

Just so that it relieves itself, to cease functioning

So not to feel a second more of this great discomfort

But it still beats on

I know what I must do 

And it will be the hardest thing I have to do

But I have no choice

You left me no choice

You and me, once we were beautiful

We were why Shakespeare wrote sonnets

And why God made flowers so fragrant and fruit so sweet

But not anymore

You brought someone into our relationship

She sat there in the room, making herself comfortable

And I tried to ignore your mistress

She walked in my home, slept in my bed and took those long drives with you till dawn

She became your secret obsession

Replacing the flame that once burned so brightly between us

To one that you burned beneath her

Even when she wasn't with you, she was in you

You craved her the way I wanted you to crave me

You would miss her fragrance, her taste

Needing her more and more everyday

Now you lie with her and I all alone

I wonder; "Had I been that crackpipe, would our love still have grown?"

So in the ruins  that you made here for me

Battered, tattered and torn. Broke and all alone

I know that tomorrow I will once again stand tall

While you will be crouched on the floor looking for pieces of her

For a brief thrill only she can give 

As your lips kiss her lips, slowly pulling her in

Inhaling the seductress' poison

I can only hope one day you will wake from her spell

Realizing why and how you lost me

Oh hell baby

I just hope you get well

and now Part Two

Back in February we lost a music icon. Whitney Houston. I was sad after losing another person I had grown up listening to. She was also someone I met a long time ago before she became a singer. She was two years older than me and a kind and sweet 18 yr old. At the time she was taking some sort of acting class near where I took piano lessons. We chatted (instigated by me the extrovert) and two years or so later I bought her 45 and Sam Goody. 

This is how I will remember her, at her best, with her life in front of her. Long before the addiction, before the paparazzi was stalking her every move and before we were judging those very decisions and actions.

I will not judge Whitney Houston for her addiction, or her downfall from grace. I can't, I haven't walked in her shoes. What I will say is that it was a shame that she was unable to save herself. From what I can tell you about addiction is that it is not a choice, or even a question of will power, the disease is more perverse to the mind than that. It wrecks havoc not only to the addict but to those around them. It becomes easier to enable them not because you don't care but from the hope that it will pass, they will get it and one day soon the addiction will end. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. There is an AdCouncil campaign that says it best; Denial is the worst addiction. 

So to the Houston family, my sympathy on your loss. To you reading my blog, if you are suffering from addiction get help, if you know someone suffering try not to enable their disease and get yourself some help. To the parents of young people, open a dialogue with your kid(s) so you can make certain they don't fall way of this. Because really, there but by the grace of God goes anyone of us.

Tonight the quote is one of hope for the addict. Mostly be cause I have hope, mostly because when we were kids no one once said I hope to be an addict when I grow up. Within the dreams of our youth lies the hope for a better day tomorrow for the addict.

"I will persist until I succeed. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.... I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking."—Og Mandino