Gravity

A poem written in rehab.

Gravity

I want to spin a thread from words

and weave a story of my life,

To make sense of madness and destruction

in some sort of picture or geometric pattern,

unlocking the meaning of my history

with a series of squares and triangles.

I want to go back--

Every cell in my body yearns for something gone, past,

but I don’t even know the day or time or place

to go back to.

Was it two years ago? Or ten? Or twenty?

How far would I need to go?

And what would I need to do?

To change or rearrange,

to stop that first domino from tipping

and triggering this endless chain reaction

of falling, falling, falling.

I am a man walking around a ruined city

after a hurricane or a bombing raid,

sifting through the rubble for anything

recognizable to save and keep.

I look in a fractured mirror and try to

come to grips with the face I see staring back,

the lines of time etched in my skin.

Experiences punctuated by burst blood vessels

around my nose.

The hollowness of empty years sitting in bags

beneath my eyes.

The gravity of a question pulls down

on my skin--

What now?

Author's Note

This is a poem I wrote while in a treatment center for addiction.