Last time

From that distant shore

One day may I

Walk the shores

Of that distant sea

And gaze in wonder

While seagulls fly

And waves break

Millions of shimmering

Ripples flowing out

One day may the light

From that distant shore

Warm me and offer

Comfort and safety

And peace, yes peace

Full days and nights release

While I wait for that day

I will live and love

Laugh and cry

And you will forever

Hear me say

I am grateful

Chris McQueeney    6/23/12    11:28   P.M

Where the fuck are you?

Those five words changed my life. Those five words showed up on my phone at four in the morning June twenty fourth two thousand nine. Today I have three years clean and sober. I was going to write what lead up to that text, but I changed my mind. Instead I will tell you some of the things that have happened since.

First thing was that I had a friend drag my ass around for a week solid making decisions for me because I was unable to make them on my own. One of the things He wanted me to do was to write out an inventory, an accounting of all the twists of thinking and character that compelled me to get fucked up and destroy my life. At first I told him no problem, and that I would write it that night. My agreeing to that ate at me for over an hour. Finally I took him aside and told him something I had never told another soul.

“I am not going to be able to write the inventory”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t write”

Those four words changed my life. I read very well. And I speak very well. I cultivated those things so that no one would know one of my shames. To put pen to paper is not something I can do. I was so ashamed of that fact, and the result was that I was dying of a disease and a major part of the treatment plan was to write. For fifteen years I had struggled in and out of sobriety and not told a soul that I couldn’t write, not one. I have no idea why I told him. A friend of mine would say that I was cracked just enough that god had room to slip in and speak through me…I can’t take it that deep so I will let you be the judge of that. “Why don’t I write it for you?” And that is exactly what he did, and I have been sober ever since.

After that week he cut me loose, to sink or swim. Every step of the way I have had people to help me swim. At just over a year sober I went to Idaho to make some amends to people that I loved dearly. I disappeared for over ten years. Also to go back to all those places that haunted me, were killing me. I did that and for almost a month after I couldn’t function. I had a break down because I didn’t have alcohol or drugs to survive the torture and abuse I experienced.

One month after my trip I went back to school. The world works at times in ways that open vistas never before available, and this was one of them. While asking at the front desk what I would have to do to get in school the woman behind the desk got on the phone and got one of the school consolers to come talk to me. Out of all the consolers he was the one who I needed the most. He told me the name of the condition that I suffer from, “that sounds like dysgraphia,” and what to do. I have been writing ever since.

I reached a point where I was finally able to write out that inventory, and I did. I chose a man I had known for twenty plus years to walk the path with me, and I told him all of my baggage. I told him how angry I was at my father for dying, how angry I was that he didn’t save me from the damage being done, and how much I missed him. I cried, and he cried because he was a friend of my fathers as well. He heard all of the broken in me that day…and I was broken, there is no doubt about that. How could anyone live through what I did and not be broken. Telling him those things broke me again, but a good break; Like when the doctor has to re-brake the bone to set it properly so it has a chance to heal.

One day a friend mentioned his blog and I decided to take a look. That friend Is Christopher from  View From The Northern Wall. Growing up I was never exposed to poetry, and the impression that I got about it was that it was something to be avoided because if anyone found out that you read poetry they would gang up on you and pummel you half to death. For some reason I wrote a poem in response to one of his poems, I was expecting him to tell me what crap it was, but he didn’t, he told me to keep writing. I have been writing poetry ever since.

The last three years have been terribly hard to survive, but I have been given a gift that I have been searching for the last thirty years…freedom from the demons driving me. I have only written a little about the last three years here. I have been blessed with a family I didn’t deserve, and friends I haven’t earned. I am a different man than I was a thousand and ninety five days ago, and I am grateful.

Chris McQueeney    6/24/12    12:03 A.M

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