Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.

Oh, man, I'm so deep.

Yeah--moving on.  Hard to believe it's Friday again already.  I stay so damn busy throughout the week that the days fly past at an alarming rate. 

My iPod's headphone jack died on me last night.  I am pretty much dismayed over this turn of events, as that beautiful piece of plastic has provided me with a lot of entertainment. 

I have nothing really interesting to say right at the moment.

What did Ginsberg say?  Something like, "No point writing when the spirit doth not lead." ???  Yeah, I think that was it.

(And then, in direct defiance of A.G., Ross continued to spew out nonsensical bullshit.  On and on he babbled, entertaining no one, infuriating few, in truth read by almost no one.  He tried to keep his spirits up regarding the state of his blog, but it seemed the whole enterprise was turning out to be a dud.)

I guess I promised at some point that I would put some of my Hi-LAR-i-Ous letters from rehab on here.  Maybe I'll just spruce them up into a little manuscript and start sending it off.  I'll be RICH!

Or...out some stamps.

Love & Kisses & Unagi-caked Dalmatians,
Rosswell

Your little hoodrat friend makes me sick...

...and after I get sick I just get sad.  Cuz it burns bein' broke, hurts to be heartbroken, and always bein' both must be a drag...she's been callin' me again...

Yeah, there's some Hold Steady for ya.  Enjoy that.

Moving on, then--my life is pretty much fawesome at this point.  It never really slows down much, but I like to stay busy...so, yeah, nothing to complain about there.

And that's the best part of my life these days--I have no real reason to complain about much.  It doesn't do us any good to bitch and moan about the boring minutiae of our day to day lives anyhow, so why bother with all that bullshit?  I have my new BFF (HIIIII Tyler!) and I have tons of supportive new friends in general and I have Quest (my outpatient center) and I ... etc.

There is so much to be grateful for--we need only open our eyes.

Not much motivation to post some huge thing right now--but I am planning to post some (rather edited) hilarity from letters I wrote in rehab.  I think you'll all enjoy them--all 5 or so people reading this blog, that is.

Plastics make it possible,
Rosswellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Freedom.

So I'm reading Jonathan Franzen's new novel, "Freedom" and it is pretty much amazing.  Not a huge surprise, there, but I've sort of been pontificating on the subject of freedom today.  What with the word staring out in bold slanting white letters every time I look at the cover of this book, I guess it was inevitable that I would give it some thought.

I used to think of my life as a junky as being a sterling example of what it meant to be free--free from society's constraints, free from unwanted responsibility, outside of the mainstream and free to be an outlaw.  Well, as it turns out (and this will surprise, probably, no one) being a drug addict was in no way freeing or liberating or admirable or worthwhile.  I lived in a state of self-imposed imprisonment for years.  When you're addicted to heroin, you wake up every day wishing you were dead.  Merely getting out of bed and facing the world, doing things that for most people are not a huge chore, all that day-to-day bullshit becomes utterly impossible.

The days of my addiction which are most vivid in my memory are the days when I would wake up beside Danielle, both of us soaked in sweat, pupils dilated, the sharp smell of two kicking junkies (sour, metallic, sweaty) thick in the air.  There were so many times when we would decide that it was time to kick, and we would make it (at most) two days before that waking horror would drive us to get right back into the swing of things.

And that's one of the hardest parts of my past for me to let go of--the swing of things, the daily grind; it kept me busy, if nothing else.  These days, I can't really allow myself to get bored.  It's essential to stay as busy as possible--at least for now.  Otherwise, well, I might have to think even more than I already do--oh, this racing mind--and the inside of one's head is a dangerous place for an addict in early recovery.

Freedom.  Freedom.  Freedom.

By allowing myself to become "a part of" instead of "apart from" in AA, I have come to a place of accepting what I have to do in order to stay sober.  I used to think that giving in and accepting the herd instinct prevalent in 12-step programs would equal a sort of intellectual death.  At this point, I don't really give a damn.  Better to be a joiner than to die a junky death.

More later--

Love,
Rosswell

A hand to hold, an excuse to be bold

So anyhow, it seems to me that the way out is through, through with the bullshit, yes yes yes.

Hung out with Tyler again today--he's pretty much my new BFF.  We even shook on it, so don't bother trying to argue with me, my decision is final!  He's the best thing since sliced Challah.

Moving on--I've been informed twice in the last two days that I have a flaming lisp and that I might as well put on a damn pink tutu and mince my way down the block, wrists limply flopping and hips gaily swiveling.

Homo.

Went to Ground Kontrol ( http://www.groundkontrol.com/ ) again today -- OMG it is the best thing ever.  I played about 500,000,000 games of Centipede.  Tyler and I nerded out there for a while and then hit up NW for the 5:30--yes, indeed.

After that, went back to his house for his potluck--a splendid time was guaranteed for all.  Few things in this life nearly so fun as listening to embittered gay men wax mincetastic about their hatred for all things unbearable.

Yes.

In summation, that, my friends, is where babies come from.

Love & kisses & wants & wishes,
Rosswell

Fawesome, indeed.

So, yes, here I am, rock you like a hurricane.

Went to Ground Kontrol with Tyler & Mark tonight--that place (it's a barcade)--is pretty much the coolest thing in the history of coolness.  Word to yo' mother.

They have a wide variety of classic arcade games and pinball machines.  Just so y'all know, Portland is cooler than anywhere else in the whole world--wanna fight about it?

Man, I am hungry like the wolf--it's time to cook something, anything.

Yes...this is uninteresting and I'm blathering, so Goodnight Kids!

Love,
Rosswell

All you need is love, apparently.

So I've been in Portland for...well, not that long...and it already feels like I have a fuller, more interesting, and altogether more fulfilling life than I ever had before.  I have tons of new friends, I go to interesting places and do interesting things, and I'm...get ready for it...F-ING SOBER!  Holy Hell!  Who would've thought a person could be happy & enjoy life without being high out of their flippin' mind pretty much 24/7?! 

As it turns out, the world is not a cold dark place.  There is so much more to this life than self-destruction and nihilism and dank, black and drear.  Wow.  Who-da-thunk, eh? 

There is a big, wonderful world, just waiting to be discovered.  I've heard it said many times before that the gates of Hell are wide open--most people just don't get up and walk out.  My experience has proven this saying to be abundantly true.  I wallowed in a morass of self-pity and self-imposed exile for years and years on end, never daring to turn my gaze upward to the sun.  I shut the light out and decided I was to be a lost cause--and ya know what?  Bullshit pretty much sums up that whole "way of life" (in truth it was a daily death)--it's callow, it's cowardly, it's hollow and it's pointless to languish in mediocrity and decay when there is a way. goddamn. out. of all that hideous morbid tripe.

I no longer have any justification to return to a daily dose of oblivion.  I have no excuse.  Yes, indeed, there has been trauma and hurt in my life, but it would be the ultimate cop-out to descend back into the old comfortable shoe of shoot-a-shot-and-become-the-dead.  I walk down these city streets at night and see the hollow-eyed, meth &/or heroin-addicted zombies shuffling along in their dirt-caked jeans, lips all chapped with exposure and ruin, burrowing into their filthy blankets, souls afflicted with poison and dourness, "the buckling beams of [their] hopes & dreams" on excruciatingly public display...and I think to myself, "There but for the grace of God go I..."

I'm just a shot away from plummeting to the streets, myself.  It is important for any addict to bear in mind that one little slip can send you a long damn way downhill, crashing through brambles to the muck of harsh reality.  Addiction's not a comfy robe, some soft option--the so-called "normies" (i.e, the non-addicted) sometimes seem like they believe it's the "easy way out."  I call bullshit on that line of illogic.  There is nothing soft or easy about being a junky or a drunk.  It is a hard, miserable life, fraught with peril, after a time lacking in any true escape.  Yeah, it is, to paraphrase Elliott Smith, fighting problems with bigger problems, but after a certain point the drugs stop working.

I reached that point myself, and let me tell you, it is a terrible position to be in--too sad for sober, yet numb to every drug.  There comes a jumping off point, a moment of clarity, when the utter unacceptability of what you're doing to yourself becomes agonizingly apparent, and the only thing left to do is--Whoops!--jump!  Let go of the needle, put the plug in the jug, and at long last make an honest attempt at living a better life.

Free at last, indeed.

Love,
Rosswell

One more: "Amnesty for My Days"

Amnesty for My Days

The end never came, world spinning on.
Here in the fluorescence of my duration
No drugs now sopping spirit,
No opiate can match the blinding summer sky
No shot shall lay waste to the beauty of being.

Each morning now so sacred, as if
A multitude of angels would herald each
Crowning dawn. That is to say the dawn is
Born the same as any infant; each day
A newborn aging into night, deceased at moonrise.

The vastness of this life is oceanic and symphonic
And although we've grasped yet one more chance
             "The center cannot hold"--
at least, that is, secure will crumble
If we go on numbing,

And killing off all days to come would be
a spirit genocide, infanticide, love horrified
          by how we'd dare to wither.
Capitulation to despair can never be okay.
The obligation, clearly cast, is opting for ascension.

Eternity of lifetime will not be quite so eternal
If we choose the path of spoons and pipes
     and cans and broken bottles.
There is yet a chasm six feet down to catch our end.
The question, then, is whether you will gently lay,
       or burning, descend.

7-20-2010

Four Newer Poems

Here are some newer poems, most of them written while in treatment, that I thought I should share with y'all.  Hope you enjoy them.


The Shot Not Fired

1

History can turn on one single bullet.
      Aaron Burr or Oswald or Booth
           pulls the trigger--
The burst of one shot
magma hot     twists the whim
         of the marching of time
future turns on a dime...

The fistula of ancient hurts is
      swollen up with bitter pus
Regret of what will never be--see,
me, I've never pulled that trigger
squeezing shot to shift the world.

I will never merit mention in
      some epic hardbound tome
My delicious nature?  No--
Though fire-hot I junky burned
my days in turn to crash through time
All sleepless nights, no reason, rhyme,
My impact rests, like most, in now.

2

He who ends in villainy
Acts out a Christly role.
To stoop in shame on history's page
To direct the disgust of the whole.

But as for me, ever-blathering I,
I'll live with being forgot--
I hold this truth self-evident:
Eternal's what I am--or not.


Compassion

Sweet empathy, sweet soul balm,
I bow at humility's feet--
With compassion for all living things,
With adoration from and for God,
With a dream in my heart of what life could comprise--
    see my star rise.

This is me at the mountain's base
        which mountain is life
and Real Life, not some drug pit.

The road is clear, the path of my years,
To live free of hate
            free of rage
                     sadness dwindle--
There is a way out of sickness and longing
I am now taking 12 Steps out of Hell.

Though fire-hot I junky burned my days in turn
 and crashed through my time
blister-eyed nights lacking rhythm or rhyme
From furnace's heart I now march, barely scathed--

Here before God I attest and declare that
       I, so indebted, will spread light & truth,
to lighten the burden of shame sick & sad
to free every heart from the cancer of craving
to stand tall & proud, free from doubt, sure & certain
          that hereon, prismatic, I'll magnify love.

See, I, in the smithy of dope sickness, formed
this heart that will not give up loving the sick--
may my love be a cradle of care & of thistledown
(as in thorn of what's passed transfigured to comfort--

         Glory! Glory! Glory! for those
who will bare their plain heart
Give their power to God

         Glory! Glory! Glorious peace
is the bounty assured for the man who seeks reverence

     Glory, Serenity, Holiness, Wisdom
I've opened my mind--May God take it from here.


Dawn's Ascent

And now the sun says "Welcome
to another dawning miracle"--
it is not for us to say
         "No thank you, God, I'll stick with sorrow."
I can let my inner mind be as the smell of rain;
     That is to say, let me be pure--
For this I pray, for this I pray.

God has granted absolution for us sinners
           New day dawning
Yes, in fact, we have the shot to shoot no more
           To breathe in calm.

Now's the time to rise up from the trough of yesterday.
To crest horizons laid before and
            gaze into tomorrow--
This fresh start's a miracle, as every day we'll see--
             And God as ever asks one question:

                      "What's it gonna be?"

7-15-10


A Bird As Thought

Annihilate yourself--
         so says the addict brain.
But we deserve so,
         so much more,
Thus I look inward--scan my mind.

Is it more a placid pool
         now rippled out by gentle leaves
or rather thrashing tempest, horrid,
         no respite amid this storm?

May my mind be gentle, level as
         a burbling brook in a glen.

A doe softly steps toward the water's edge--
a snapping twig sends crashing wings
through brush and branch
       as thoughts soon stir--

And though the mind is restless,
this thought--as all--it soon will pass.

8-11-10

More Old Poems: "The Kick", "The Opiate War"

The Kick

Bleed blood mellifluent, tar

Opalescent eyelids they flutter—

Needle now withdrawn,

Heart now wrapped in shudder.

Doused in heroin, sweaty,

Triumphant through the sick

Spoon clinks tile or sink,

head fading into bog, to the thick.

Waking, cells indignant,

The cycle begins anew.

It takes a lot of taking

to get from black tar to through.

The Opiate War

I have called a ceasefire

An end to the shooting

Hollow-point heroin bullets

fly no more,

Numb me no longer.

I’ve waved the white flag of surrender.

Needle cannons stilled,

Syringe caps as grenade pins

No longer held in teeth.

I am calling for peace.

An end to this war on self—

time to withdraw the needle

and squirt this shot to the dirt.

Time to withdraw the needle—

Squirt this shot into dirt.

Poems: "The Purpose of Poetry", "What Heroin Feels Like"

The Purpose of Poetry

Poetry blows up

preconceptions, the dull,

At its best turns a

tree to a spread-legged virgin

Or takes simple stars and

shrinks them to seem

like our own lives or minds

Connected and finite.

Poetry redefines,

It stretches and yawns

As words painted anew

Blow up the canon.

8-26-08

What Heroin Feels Like

Sweet opiate tongue, lick my aching bones

Bring me back to steady, steady my shaking blood.

The needle’s like a knife, cuts like a splinter,

Draws out some poison I stored deep inside—

Leaves back impression of something like love

Or perhaps just a hint of the death that’s to come.

If you want to know what heroin feels like

Just orgasm through every vein and cell

And feel the bonebreak of a sweaty palm nightmare

Melting away as the runoff in spring.
The sweetness of sunshine breaking through cumulus

And blood-drip down arm of the body cry joy.

If you want to know what an injection can be

Just slip in the barrel and pull on the trigger

And shoot with a bullet of the sweetest black tar.

Feel warm water flowing through arteries, a wave

Tidal in scope the honeyblood liplick

Put yourself up on the shelf for a while.

If you want, however, to know the lack-need

Of heroin flitting gone down the slipstream

The spray of shot all faded away

Keep yourself on too long by one day

Metastasize smack through spirit and mind

And feel your skin break, and feel your bones crawl.

What heroin feels like is mortgaged heart and form

Pay on it daily or sickness repossess flesh

As if your guts were on loan

The spoon held all the papers

And ‘round the banker came, spoon belly all empty,

Demanded a hit and finding none ate the high

And down you spiraled down to find the lowest low

The soul could dig down

And dig down it did—

When you bottom out you’ll find what heroin is:

A temporary fix that ends up fixing you

With a collar and a shock

And no key, no end in sight.

10-24-07

Play something familiar...

I. Love. Portland.

I watched The Decemberists down at Pioneer Courthouse Square tonight--it was pretty much amazing. 

Went up to Washington Park with Mark--we hiked around and around and ended up down at the International Rose Test Garden.  It was pretty surreal--there was some insane lesbian pop/guitar duo playing in the amphitheater, shrieking songs which included the word vagina and the line, "Stop staring at my tits--I don't want you to."  It was...um...out of place, to say the least.  Walking between thousands of roses amongst senior citizens while Lilith-Fair-gone-dirty went down a couple hundred yards away--priceless.

Then a drag queen duo took the stage and sang a song about smoking pot...wow.  It's a strange world.
 
It was after that that we ended up down at Pioneer Square.  We ran into another friend, Tyler, and wandered around a bit until The Decemberists took the stage.  I am pretty much in love with Colin Meloy.  True story.

My life is seriously amazing.  I couldn't have predicted this.  Really.

Furthermore, there's no reason to be afraid.  Ever.

Love,
Rosswell

Hello world.

It's another good day.  Funny how life is so, so worth living as long as I stay sober. 

I have to leave for outpatient here in an hour or so--then I'm going downtown to Old Town Pizza.  From what I've heard, it's one of those you-must-do-this-to-be-a-Portlander kinds of things. 

I love this city with every fiber of my being.

And I met my future husband at least three times in the last week.

I feel like the prettiest girl at the prom.

Stay thirsty my friends,
Rosswell ;-)

i am...

i am...

       used up bruised up as a pear in a punching bag
  or at least once upon a
       time was once the enemy but now
 is now all i have

yes.

                acceptance
cures the doldrums way of the day-to-day
           and no, it's not so simple yet
the more one tries, the more happiness pries,
     and yes
i am i am "i am" said mankind
     crawling up from out the muck and ooze
  oh, life succeeds, we'll triumph, yes,
             the world's blooming,
             life is triumphant.

*muah*

And I think to myself...

What a wonderful world it is, indeed.  I am ridiculously happy to be alive.  Every day a new dream.

Walked along the river today.
It was a good day.
I don't have time to type much of anything right about now so I'm going to come back later and do a proper post. 

later, my lovelies

rosswell

Today was a good day.

Yes, today was a good day.  The only real downfall to today was when a guy tried to sell me cocaine at a Max stop in Oldtown.  It didn't really bother me all that much, what with the fact that I'm just not interested in that bullshit anymore.

It was a good day.

I went to an AA meeting at a treatment center for some 12 step work...it was spiritually fulfilling and uplifting.  There is so much hope to be had in this world.

I look through the windowpane of
shifting realities cracked with
the thrown pebble of "No longer
accepting the lie" and
I find that the view through
raindrop downtown downpour
walking through the Alphabet District
is of a new me--Grief is not

the only option
and the end, long-prophesied,
is not coming soon.

Breathe, dream, the rain puddles
atop the bus stop shelter
The blooms here in the City of Roses
are sighing, soaked, sharp of scent,
grieve no longer the wasted days,
find a flicker within the drizzle.


Love and kisses and catastrophes averted,
Rosswell

Hands Across The Bridge

Today I went to a recovery-oriented event called "Hands Across the Bridge."  It took place on a bridge over the Columbia which connects Portland & Vancouver, WA.  Roughly 3,000 recovering addicts and alcoholics joined hands all the way across this massive bridge and said the Serenity Prayer.  It was incredible, actually.

I'm meeting all sorts of awesome people--my life is really pretty exciting.  I love my life these days...

I've got a sponsor and have been going to AA meetings here every day. . .also--can't remember if I mentioned this on here yet--I started an outpatient program where I get acupuncture five days a week and do yoga two days a week.  My days are kept pretty full; I don't let myself get too bored.

On an unrelated note, how about that US Open?  Omigod it make-uh me HAPPPPPYYYYY!

Love you all ("all" being very few people at this point, but I'll be widely read soon enough, I assure you).

Hugs and kisses and rusty tuna can lids,


Rosswell

So Anyhow...

Well I've started to get settled in here in Portland.  I'm so ridiculously happy...it almost feels like this can't really be happening. 

Every day a new dream...new concept.

I (heart) Neutral Milk Hotel

In the Aeroplane over the Sea

What a beautiful face 
I have found in this place
That is circling all round the sun
What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet
Let me hold it close and keep it here with me

And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun 
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be 
In the arms of all I'm keeping here with me

Anna's ghost all around 
Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me
Soft and sweet
How the notes all bend and reach above the trees   

Now how I remember you 
How I would push my fingers through
Your mouth to make those muscles move
That made your voice so smooth and sweet
And now we keep where we don't know
All secrets sleep in winter clothes
With one you loved so long ago
Now he don't even know his name 

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place 
That is circling all round the sun
And when we meet on a cloud
I'll be laughing out loud
I'll be laughing with everyone I see
Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all

Looks like I started a blog.

Well, I figured since I've started a new life that I should start a new blog.  I just moved to Portland, Oregon, and it's pretty much amazing.  In the next week, I'll hopefully be going to see Panda Bear, Man Man, and maybe The Decemberists.  Pretty thrilling, actually--I never could've been this happy in Montana.

Granted, happiness is more or less an inside job, but if you live somewhere utterly lacking in things you're interested in, how happy are you going to be?

At any rate--I'll post something that's actually interesting at some point later today.

Yeah.

Rosswell