The Math of Life

Here's a link to my YouTube channel where I read my poetry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4sfxAFCf-I

They always asked,
have you tried the 12 steps?
The jailers, the doctors, the ministers, the therapists.
I'd been to meetings, ordered, committed, sentenced,
and they didn’t feel like sermons or lightning.

One guy said,
it's like 12 pieces of wood,
planked out like a dock over dark water.
But docks always felt shaky to me.
I believed in riptide.

A big poster:
Twelve traditions,
suggestions to keep drunks from brawls
over who's in charge.
I fought over less.
They said take it one day at a time.
One day was an eternity.
More like one minute,
one second sometimes.

I had counted in loose change,
75 cents more for a bottle.
I counted in bottles, half-bottles,
empty bottles hiding under the bed
like glass badgers.
I counted in jail days
and minutes until the liquor store opened.

Now I count in mornings,
30 days, 90 days, three years.
Coins the size of tumors pressed into my hand
like I’m a hero
instead of a man
who had finally had enough
of the soulless life.

Four children,
two ex-wives,
six broken hearts that hoped like a junkyard sparrow.
Two dead brothers,
and zero pamphlets titled How to Bury Blood.
At those funerals,
I stood there and tried to reconcile the math
in my head,
why I was the one still breathing.

Three cats
who watched me sweat and shake on the couch,
wretch into trash cans.
Friends with tails, silent and unimpressed.
One sponsor who meant it
when he said, call me,
who knew when I said I was fine,
it meant I was fucked,
that every fiber of my being wanted a drink.
He knew,
cause he'd been there too.

Step One said I was powerless.
That didn’t appeal to my literary senses.
I had powered through jail sentences,
prison,
and life under bridges.
Powerless sounded like surrender,
but surrender was the answer to all those prayers
I thought went unanswered.
Surrender was the first thing
that didn’t make me vomit.

Step Three said something about God
as I understood Him.
My understanding of God was through religion,
and religion was nothing.
The Creator wanted a personal relationship,
and I didn’t understand relationships.

I understood ceiling fans
spinning at 3 a.m.
I understood rebellion and sweat,
soaking the sheets.
I understood fear
like a cancer that was eating away at my life.
But I kept showing up
in blizzards,
in pouring rain,
in humidity that hurt like walking in a fire.

Church basements,
old storefronts,
metal chairs that hurt my old a*s,
coffee that tasted like flavored water,
old men with stories worse than mine,
young men with stories just like mine.
We counted days of joy and sorrow
like misers.
We spoke in numbers:
five years, ten years, twenty.

I had fourteen days,
then two years,
then a number big enough.
I still can't believe it.
The math never makes sense.

Twelve steps.
A hundred dead friends.
One mom dead, one dad dead.
Brothers dropping like flies.
Three cats dozing on the loveseat
in a square of sunlight.
Zero drinks today.

And that's the only number
that ever really mattered.
And for once,
it's all I need.
It's enough.

Author's Note

I recently posted a new long-form poetry reading featuring a sneak peek from my upcoming book, Searching for Nod.

Watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4sfxAFCf-I

📖 You can also find all my books on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Thomas-W.-Case/author/B0CL2RKDGX

— Thomas W. Case

Reviews

[Pete]

difficult steps to freedom but well worth it. not everyone is good at math but somehow you found the right formula. mind, spirit, will - all powerful things that can overtake the body. a friend of mine did it, he still gets minor shakes sometimes but he did it. congrats my friend and keep up the good work - both staying dry and writing.

[Thomas W Case]

Thank you, Pete. Much appreciated.

[Michael Sun Bear]

Damn Thomas, that may be the best description of the horrors of addiction that I have ever read. And congratulations on your sobriety as well as your writing skill/gift. I am saving this. I wish every single person who doesn’t have the disease could read this.

[Thomas W Case]

Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated.

[Desert Knave]

Damn. So strong. The line that really hit me is one I speak more often than I'd care to admit: "why I was the one still breathing.". ~Jim

[Thomas W Case]

Thank you, Jim. Much appreciated.

[Soren]

Frank, tough, to the point and as usual full of grit. Loved it Thomas it lays it out there as you tell it as you see it. Very nicely written

[Thomas W Case]

Thank you, my friend.

[Soren]

You are most welcome Thomas

[Chris Shaw]

What a journey. A triumph to have got through it after all the losses along the way. Poetry is therapeutic, keep investing in it and heavily. It pays dividends.

Chris

[Thomas W Case]

Thanks, Chris.

[JessyJacob]

Sometimes I see why not imagination is given more importance than reality, because you can't build home but you can imagine KSA king salman palace within a second and imagine living there, why should I cry when nothing became reality so i stopped thinking why can't I stay imagining my life with my family and feeling the result the reaction on my soul nowadays they say manifest, but I do for my continuation of my life where I am left alone with my family. God already planned this for me how to live because he has foreseen my misery and gave me powerful strength to imagine to lead rest of my life, i have everyone of my family under one roof of sky. Life is a struggle for few and for me it is compromise I was right in getting adjusted with life and he never accepted it and was wrong and taught me back why you compromise it is not needed and finally corrected himself life is perfect with its imperfections and to make it pass through we need to adjust with our ownself.

Your lines you just written but i am living in this WC as if i am in my home with my family.

Jessy Jacob ❤️
Thank you for sharing.

[Thomas W Case]

Thank you so much.