Voices on Addiction: Five Poems by Sophie Klahr
I mis- / take this state for another. Take the wheel.
...moreI mis- / take this state for another. Take the wheel.
...moreA seagull plummeted into the wounded water.
...moreI trust, nowadays. I have to keep at it
...moreThere was no map, no compass. Just me, the needle, and heroin.
...moreThis world doesn’t have to like me. But it does have to reckon with me, with my humanity.
...moreThe truth is different. The truth is always different.
...moreBehind DOOR NUMBER ONE / is a hammer, to break the wings off angels.
...moreAs recovering addicts, we must love ourselves back to the source, love our shameful bits and decimations and not just our reconciliations and resurrections.
...moreI remember hunger the way other children remember love.
...moreI didn’t want to be edited in that way. I needed to tell my story.
...moreNeed had carved out specific contours in my personality, and then it returned like a curse to fit in those spaces.
...moreI don’t remember when [my brother] ran away; I just remember him being gone more often than not.
...moreBroken people are drawn to other broken people. Comparing scars. Laying belly to belly. Two similar pieces of different puzzles.
...moreIt’s never the words I remember. It’s their taste: bitter, dense, like biting into a radish. It’s how my body feels: sore.
...moreMother should have told me that booze made a kind of heaven in my body, I thought the first time I felt it.
...moreI imagine the box of obsidian flakes and chunks at home—gathered from explorations in the desert. Their edges cut through skin, draw blood.
...moreSometimes life is so big and so loud and being a human being in the world is so much I feel overwhelmed and need a cocoon.
...moreHe wasn’t an alcoholic! He was just British. I was starting to think that this bullet was long past being dodged.
...moreShe never stopped, a bee buzzing from flower to flower to flower, collecting all the sweetness she could.
...moreShame is a treble hook that tells me that 1) I not only fail but am a failure, that 2) I not only damage people but I am damaged, and that 3) I not only lie but I am a lie.
...moreI know that there are those who would argue that alcoholism is a singularly extreme condition, and I get that, but I’ve always felt clear that there’s a lot of overlap between alcoholism and plain old ordinary humanity.
...moreThe world is a merry-go-round, a sawed-off shotgun, a ticker tape. There’s no struggle now. There’s only darkness, breathlessness, exit—
...moreTrying to protect him from himself is like trying to protect atmosphere from weather.
...moreThe word rehab is short for rehabilitate, which means to restore to a former capacity. Like houses, I remember thinking. Demo the kitchen. Tear down the walls.
...moreThe men in my family don’t live long, you foretold. Damn you. Drunks and rock stars don’t grow up.
...moreSomewhere along the way, the salty fresh sea breezes of the beach are replaced by the drier, more metallic air of my mother’s neighborhood. It might as well be a different continent.
...moreBut was I an alcoholic? The idea had never crossed my mind. The more I reflected on it, the less I understood.
...moreI will always feel a little broken. Intellectually, I know her disease is “not my fault.” But I’m her mother. I will always partially feel the blame.
...moreI wanted more time with him, but I didn’t want to hope. Too much hope will mess you up.
...moreI got to thinking about home. What the fuck is home anyway?
...more