Sober on the Way to Sane by Sherrie Theriault

Amazon.com

Powell's Books

January 11

LONELINESS EATS MY LUNCH

There are days loneliness eats my lunch and I can’t fight back.  How can I stand it?  How can it still be this bad?  I pull out the old chestnuts:  If I’m not happy with what I have, how could I be happier with more?   And, Even tickets on the fifty yard line don’t interest me; I came to play!  I roll them around.  I think of the other slogans, the tidbits, the smiles and hugs.  Still, there are days my lunch is gulped down and I sit with my plate empty.  Pickle juice, coleslaw drool is small comfort.  Actually, it’s a jeer.  I stare at my empty plate.  I turn it and twist it.  I stick out my tongue at it.

“You're good company,” says my sponsor.

Then why am I alone?  If I’m so good, if my company is worthwhile, why do I sit here hungry and desperate?

“Are you sure you are?”

It sure feels that way.

“Well it might be true.”

And it might not.  I get it.  I am unhooked from myself; I’m ignoring the multitude at my elbow, looking for someone in my lap.  I’m holding out for old terms from a new contract.  I am loved by people who aren’t trying to consume me and I am letting my expectations dine for free.

Imagine who the wind visited before you and who it is on its way to visit now.

*

Pepo

My father used to destroy a perfectly good watermelon

by cutting a triangle in the top

and pouring a bottle of vodka into it.

I used to destroy my perfectly good melon the same way.

Emulating bad ideas in new ways

was a onetime pastime of mine.

Giving it up was harder than I had expected.

Flawed thinking blends so freely with my mental landscape

I have trouble distinguishing it.

Condemning the action and not the man

is not usually my preferred method.

I would rather condemn the man.

But this leaves me with the actions in place

and him long gone and though I prefer him gone

I will recreate him within myself

if I don’t flush his actions as well.

I have a good pumpkin on my shoulders

but it is my job to keep it intact.