Three Poems
“I am recently sober. And have been thinking of sobriety and the transformative processes a lot."
Sirama
Today I saw a hawk far away and on the wing.
I thought that it had caught
a mouse or some small thing.
It became clear as it drew near
that it struggled only with itself.
With pain, with love, with loneliness.
It yearned for something else.
Growing Into It
I wonder how the caterpillar
knows its grown its wings?
I wonder if they wish to stay
the way they’ve always been?
A way like past is present,
and life needn't move along.
It takes so much to fly away.
I wish I was so strong.
Movie Night
He woke up earlyish. Which was out of character for him. It felt like everyday, his daily hangover making things difficult. A quick glance at the clock let him know it would be 20 more minutes before the liquor store opened. That was good. Not great, but good. Not that there was anything he could do about it, he thought, for the first time today. His hands betrayed him when he drank a glass of water. Spilling half before it could reach his mouth. Unsurprisingly, the whiskey jug was emptied into the sink again. Drunken Timmy was trying to get a message through.
He turned on the TV and opened his laptop. The television was much too loud again. He wondered for the 100th time if alcohol makes things hard to hear or if it was some long term scheme his inebriated self was in on. Some kind of plot to deafen him as a punishment for everything he put himself through.
He’d been watching Man on Fire again. Drunk Timmy's favorite. A man named Jon Creasy, an alcoholic man, finds redemption, maybe even salvation, in his friendship with a young girl. It is made clear this man has done terrible things. Even though he is a pious man, he believes the things he has done can never be balanced, never be forgiven. Pita, the girl, knows nothing about that. She sees only her bodyguard, a good man, who is sad and lost in some way she cannot grasp. He becomes her protector, and through that act, he finds a new purpose, a way to move forward. She gives him a second chance to prove he is worthy of life, and maybe even god’s love. When she is kidnapped, and he believes her dead, Creasey does not climb back into the bottle. He seeks restitution.
In doing so, he shows he is truly the man he is afraid to be. He learns he does not need to be a good man to be a whole man. He seeks payment for his suffering. He is determined to hurt her killers the same way they hurt him. I think Drunken Timmy likes this movie so much because Creasy isn't seeking enlightenment or a better world. He knows those things are beyond him. He recognizes that he is who he is, and he accepts himself. Money, pain, love, death, nothing changes him. He is a man complete, and I can see why Drunken Timmy likes that.
