I
stopped drinking back in July of 1984…
Stayed
away from the old neighborhood!
Actually,
drove the long way around it
When
I had to go by it— avoiding the
Two
corner bars!
Went
back to school, ate healthy food,
Drank
a lot of orange juice, ate a lot of
Apples!
The Old days long gone!
Then
one day I walked back into the old
Neighborhood,
even into the corner bars
To
see, just to see, what it was like, it was
Now
1986; I had two years of sobriety,
Behind
my belt:
Everything
was relatively the same, a few
New
faces, but mostly old ones, the ones
I
once drank with, in the 60s and 70s:
They
wooed me on and when I wouldn’t
Drink
they booed me some.
As
I said, everything was the same, the
Houses,
the streets, the people, it was as if
Time
stood still!...
So
what was it, I asked myself: why did I
Feel
so odd, so strange?
Everything
was the same, everything and
Everybody
just the same as the day I left—
Everything,
everybody, but me: I changed.
No:
4515/8-8-2014
Poem 25,
of the MS “The Drunk”
