060915 digital adversity

060915
—
my recovery means
a life leading me back to the infirmary
because the firmness of spirit in me has faded
from years of abuse, internal and external
i exist as a past participle of the life i once led
a collection of stories i now recite in my head
the same way that alcoholics choose between
the loose faith and bumpy road of recovery
winding serpentine and anything but easy
or the familiar certainty lying between
deceptively transparent walls containing liquid hate
(where a bottle of booze looks more like a lens
to distort, frame and perpetuate our focus
on the distilled Trojan Strawman dwelling therein)
another distraction to obfuscate the larger social truth:
that addiction is every day more
the social affliction of a profoundly sick society
(comprising heavily of well-adjusted individual
insanity, rampant dishonesty and other civil impropriety)
than it is a physiological excuse
to avoid accountability for whatever we choose
when something outside us worms its toxic way within
(for the sake of discussion, let’s call it “oppression”)
and incites us to pick and choose and press
the button clearly labeled “self-destruct”
over and over and over again.

sometimes its hard to read the thoughts i think
in the things i write in a blink to say,
“we’re fucked,” and i hope with intense inflection
that these words depict an inaccurate reflection —
an errant worldview too intent on the inherent negativity
of entropic introspection — radical activist collective
supposedly, lacking in praxis? to keep some perspective
meet the princess and the pea, normalizing himself
in the form of a conservative subculture complete
with social roles, costumes and alienating conformity
others’ clothing and ink say nothing of substance to me
but i read plenty regarding group structure and hierarchy
broadcast identities, merely unproven labels
smoke and mirrors where monsters primp and preen
while behavior to back the claims
evidence outstanding remains conspicuously unseen

my recovery means life leading me beyond
what i currently know to be true
by blurring the lines of industry inside of me
demarcating and limiting with digital adversity
the analog universe of divine poetry
spitting its verse of infinite diversity
right through me…when i choose to listen
to the subtleties of difference within
evolutionary creation embodying the creator
who spares no expense with every fiber of her being
to give us every opportunity to sense the intent behind
the meaning inside the scene she wants us to see
like how the civilogical narcissistic narrowness of,
“i eat what i grow” and “i grow what i know,”
simplifies itself through time with help from a new(ly re)found
innate curiosity and openness of mind into
“i seek to know and eat what grows”
somewhere in between the sharing of such simplicity
outside the civilogical confines of ethnocentricity
i discover new (to me) depths of complexity
fundamental and unfolding
inalienable and perplexing

in this case, every bottle of booze we abuse
finds itself entangled in a context of greater proof:
someone just wants to feel calm and OK
or at least, to become numb and aloof of her
pain, to overcome and not succumb to her
chronic anxiety, aka “that voice inside of me”
insisting quietly — sometimes screaming —
“something feels wrong”
prying my eyes wide open while dreaming
to show me the machinery of co-dependency
from the limits of my cage, she asks
“are you leaving?”

my recovery means shedding tears:
physically wasted on pasty white sun-basted
faces inhabiting strange places
these phrases read with an asynchronicity in colonial spaces
strangers in a strange land not for any lack of color
on the back of our hands but for the lack of mela(to)nin
in our thoughts that keep us subservient to The Man, Burning:
world turning, stomach churning, heart yearning, body learning
automatic somatic lessons from subtle confessions
the more i listen, the less i make
ethical concessions in exchange for good impressions
the less i need a therapeutic profession with the ever-present
“time’s up for today, please see the secretary to schedule your next session”
because this form of vulnerability has its own
built-in protections against
the patriarch plutarch oligarch spitting crude dark
into the atmosphere and my body, with my breath
let these cancerous words you hear
create the spark
ignite the fear and live to make your mark
free and clear of civil sociopathy, it took me
31 years to see all she really wants of me, i now summarize:
liberated empathy, from what i can surmise.