Workshop leader April Patrick has been working with a great group of writers at the Turning Point Recovery Center in Bennington, Vermont. Here’s some wonderful work from group members there. Please don’t hesitate to read and share!

WALK IN THE RAIN by LenaMarie

Walk in the rain

to wash away the pain

Don’t wanna go out like Cobain

or with a needle in my vein

If I can just abstain

sober I can remain

but I feel insane

from the noise inside my brain

so loud it gives me a migraine.

I feel like I’m circling the drain

trying to refrain

getting on that long black train.

Sorry to complain,

but my brain

I need to retrain,

so I can heal the pain.

Thank You Nickolas by LenaMarie

My baby brother was kind.

My baby brother was so strong.

My baby brother was so brave.

My baby brother was wise beyond his years.

My baby brother taught me how to be a mom when I was only 11.

My baby brother taught me what loving someone really meant.

My baby brother even years after his death 

still teaches me how to be a

better person.

So to my brother Nickolas,

I say thank you for teaching me kindness 

when we didn’t see much kindness.

I want to thank you for teaching me strength

as your body grew weaker.

I want to thank you for teaching me bravery

when you knew the end was near.

I want to thank you for showing me wisdom beyond both our years.

But most of all I want to thank you for making me want to be a better

person, as good a person as you.

Because of you I want to be the greatness you could have become.

You were already so great by the age of only 12.

Thank you my dear brother for being you 

and teaching me what the best

version of me can be.

In loving memory of

Nickolas Micheal Allen Burdick

2/8/99 - 12/20/11

BOOTCAMP by Richard Mayer

The train squeaks and chuffs to a halt. The doors open to spill out a new batch of recruits. The freshly shaved-headed bootcampers pour out of the doors and clamber onto the platform. They are greeted by Boatswain’s Mate First Class Mr. Greenfield. Greenfield is a scrawny, bowlegged, crusty lifer in what he always refers to as “This Man’s Navy.”  

His first words to his audience are, “Alright you shitbirds, your mother’s not here!”  and “Hop to it ladies! I don’t have all day.”  

We’re all worn out from the eighteen hour train ride and almost no sleep. 

 “I’ve made a terrible mistake,” I say to myself. I refrain from saying, “Sir, I want to go home, Sir.” I retreat into my shell and glaze over. 

 “Are you crying, sailor?” barks Greenfield with an edge of sarcasm that cuts to the bone. Everyone laughs. 

I don’t laugh. I feel hot shame and shrink into the ground. I’m seventeen. I have three more years to serve. The laughter turns to a murmur, as if everyone has taken on my shame. 

“No Sir! I feel fine Sir!”

Greenfield reminds me:  “Your mother’s not here, Boot!”

SON IN CALIFORNIA, 1997  by Richard Mayer

Descending America’s western edge

on a rental car blue sky Sunday

I am with my golden boy again

with sunglasses and tee shirt turban

Wrapped around his head

like an Arabian prince he sleeps

Yesterday when I wasn’t looking

The sun burnt his fair face,

and he protects himself now 

from further insult

When he was a child he took refuge

in makeshift tents and cubbyholes

Private worlds where he was safe in his aloneness

For he has been alone in beauty and in pain

And watching him sleep now

I take comfort that he finds relief in that same familiar way

But I know I can’t keep him from sunburn or heartache

REMEMBERING DENNIS by Richard Mayer

  The last of the sober cowboy poets has left the building, and things won't be the same around here.  Dennis's stories, (and boy he had some stories) were colorful, poignant, and sometimes true.  

He'd be the first to tell you, with a central casting Irish twinkle in his eye, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."  Yes, he had an Irish storyteller's gift for a bit o' the blarney, yet he was probably one of the most honest of our members when it mattered. I don't think anyone's attention ever drifted when Dennis was holding court in a meeting, because he had so much to say and always said it in the language of the heart.  

Dennis inhabited a world of jakey bums, tickle bullets and cash register honesty. His stories were laced with these colorful gems.  A favorite of mine was the one about rolling off a freight train and careening down the stairs of the old Centerville where his sober journey miraculously got its start.  

Long before he passed on, whenever I heard a train whistle, I would think of him and smile.  Dennis's gratitude for the sober life was obvious, and yet he was stubborn in his concern that the program might change his personality. As far as I can see it didn't, except for the quiet generosity in his considerable commitment to helping other alcoholics. I know he was a praying man, because so many of his sentences began with the invocation JESUS CHRIST!

I met Dennis at the nooner, when we were both brand new and a bit ambivalent about sticking around.  We did and gradually got comfortable with the terms of our surrender, which in the long run turned out to be the best deal in town. Dennis met Annie in a hail of tickle bullets, and a great love story ensued. I treasure having known the two of them, constant reminders of the simplicity of the program: just show up, don't drink, go to meetings.  

So when you hear that train whistle, think of Dennis. He was one of the great ones.

This was a joint writing experiment in which we (April Patrick, Suzanne Wessler, Barbara Paterson, and Sara S.) each added a line or lines and passed the notebook to the left when the two-minute timer went off. The prompt was: “We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.” -How it Works, AA Big Book)

WE by Suzanne Wessler, Sara S., April Patrick

Honor thy Higher Power. Honor thy step work. 

Humans are messy, prickly, stumbling. 

No one’s perfect— Amen to that!

Spirituality is the belief that there is something greater at play. 

We have no idea how big the universe is or what or who made it,

only that it was done by someone or something much greater than

a polar bear in size & power

sleeker than a seal

stronger than a dive-bombing eagle 

who powers herself out of the ocean 

clutching a flapping flounder.

I get drunk. We stay sane & sober. 

We succeed like a dancing hive 

of bees connected

In vibrating symbiotic

togetherness.

WONDER WOMAN IS SO TIRED by Suzanne Wessler

-after Kyra Wilder

Wonder Woman is so tired, she can barely keep her eyes open. Tired of her

eyeliner, lipliner, spray. She’s so tired.

Holding that can of Wonder Woman hair spray - scented with ozone, patchouli

and lemonade - her biceps tremble.

Wonder Woman is so tired, her wrists weighed down with bullet-defying

bracelets.

Tired and beautiful, beautiful and weary of saving the girls from wolfish men, the

boys from eating their cereal with their daily dose of macho. Wonder Woman is

not macho. She’s not in menopause but has paused from men, mankind not being

kind enough, strong enough to love and be tender.

Wonder Woman’s cape flutters. Her hair does not move. Her legs straddle the

earth like a goddess. Her cobalt blue eyes are stern, red lips curled in delighted

disgust as she turns away; the W glows like a dying star on her waist.

What a waste, she thinks, and wishes she was not tired.

Lena by Suzanne Wessler

(a little salute to a co-writer in recovery at the W4R workshop)

Lena, Lena, have you seen her? Writing up a storm of what’s inside her head,

sometimes hope, sometimes dread, often love and rage and pain,

but always pure and real is her refrain.

Pure intention to stay the course and speak her truth:

the truth of life free from drugs or drink, the truth of recovery to freely act and 

think.

A Prayer to the Goddess of Recovery by Suzanne Wessler

Oh, fertile Goddess, sharpened, brown and smoothed by female hands:

Bring me abundance of love and compassion.

Protect me from the empty womb of spirit.

Fill me with juicy swimming sobriety,

Then grant me the courage and skill to nurture this sobriety

As I would my own child.

Lap of God by April Patrick

My ma was a sunflower, Pa was a perch

Great-grandpa a moonshine bootlegger

Grandma's house was the Lap of God. 

For the hell of your grisly death, I thank you Ma,

for it jettisoned me from your Womb at last, 

forced me to rely upon The Old Ones. 

Ten copper Junebugs

Three little monsters, 

Four little ghosts, 

Three pellucid geckos, 

Three hundred sugar-ants

inhabit Ma’s house when she dies.

Slowly testing her timelapse-wings, 

Ma swoops out under the awning and 

Flies away from her body.

Afternoon sun on Loblolly Pine

Needles shimmer silver 

like Christmas tree tinsel or 

fibrous filaments of frost. 

Swallowtails and wasps smooch 

Lavenders’ luscious blossoms. 

An aggrieved squirrel sounds a

Querulous alarm. 

Leaves of the Chinaberry rustle and 

Rustle, a soporific hush.

Grandma rocks on her porchswing, smiling at the breeze, 

drinking sweet tea with lemon. She pampers hen-&-chicks, Kalanchoe, 

ferns, & roses, feeds me at age 4 little mugs of sweet creamy coffee, 

bottomless bowls of Neapolitan ice cream, 

hot chocolate pudding, chicken-n-dumplins, & 

Miracle Whip-slathered roast beef sandwiches.

She bathes me in the sink with crumbly cubes of 

lavender bath salts wrapped in gold foil. 

She scratches my back with a fireplace matchstick until 

I shiver with bliss.

She rocks me to sleep on her doughy belly.  

These were my days of yore.

Grandma’s gone, too, to the 

Great Beyond.

Gone sixteen years now.

Benevolent Old Ones, 

Hallowed Great Spirit,

Thank you for these Blessings! 

When I die, will I understand & love all in a flash

of awe and oneness? Will Bliss overflow me? 

Will we cruise on sunny cumulus clouds, 

belly-laughing? 

All Your creations & all the Gods rejoined together? 

That, or something better

PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG WOMAN by April Patrick

This is you on your second day of first grade, standing in the driveway between the orange Vega hatchback and the white Ford station wagon. Your four year-old sister stands barefoot beside you in a long, Scooby Doo and Scrappy sleepshirt. You wear a bright pink and butter yellow satin jacket like the Pink Ladies wear on Grease only prettier, and you carry a daffodil yellow and fuschia plastic lunch kit with Miss Piggy riding a motorcycle on it. Miss Piggy is wearing shiny silver knee high boots like George Clinton of Funkadelic would wear. 

This is you in the Fleetwood Flair motorhome on your family’s great cross-country motor home trip in 1986. We’re about to hit the waves at Carmel Beach in CA. Standing beside your sleepy-eyed, mustached, furry-chested dad, you wear a one-piece bathing suit, slicked-back short hair and braces. Your sister is standing up on the fold-out single bed on the other side of your father. She’s wearing her one-piece bathing suit and Dad’s baseball cap that she’s probably just swiped off his head. Your sister looks like a gymnast, but she’s on the verge of sticking her tongue out at the camera. Your mom, who’s behind the camera, has likely been nagging her to irritability, in the special way she has of couching questions with fearsome critiques tucked inside–like some kind of foulness-filled donut. 

This is you holding your Bennington College diploma beside your dad on Commons Lawn. Your dad wears a nice khaki colored jacket and dress shirt. His smile is tender, toothy and real. You wear a little black dress–how slender you were in 1996! All that dancing! Thanks to T. Creach’s and S. Sgorbati’s excellent dance classes! Your hair is long, your makeup minimal, and your eyebrows overplucked. You both glow with joy, happy achievement and wonderment to be together in Bennington VT!

TO MY POP by Yukon Fonda

Hey Pop. The nights run cold, and I grow old. 

Hey Pop, I wonder if you can see me. 

Hey Pop, remember you’d pick me up by my

ears?  You were so strong.

Hey Pop, remember swimming in the lake in December? 

I thought you were Superman.

Hey Pop, the way you loved your girl–you were so damn classy.

Hey Pop, you told me to follow my dreams and not to be scared. 

Hey Pop, you told me to stand for something even if I’m the only one standing. 

Hey Pop, I think I’m strong as you now–maybe classy too.

Hey Pop, you left us on a Sunday. I never cried so hard. 

Hey Pop, when I look back I smile, know it was worth your while. 

I’ll see you again someday. Thank you, Pop.

PAINTED DESERT  by JMMJ

Why was I here? Could not find a purpose

Found no one who cared

Went, wandered through places

Didn’t know where

Saw what I saw, froze me to stare.

I’d sit in the grass and say what the hey.  

So much to grab, too much to pay. 

I wonder why I came this way.

Why I was here. Found not me a purpose. 

Found no one who cared. 

I feared, young, outside myself.

I then feared me–I shut my mouth.

I stayed that way for many years.

I drank some wine and lost my fears.

Traumatized, I slouched my shoulders and 

downed my eyes.

Afraid in crowds 

I’d drink to socialize.

They took me in stray, gave me time and 

their children to play. Ten years hence, I don’t recall 

thanking them. It’s come to today. I’ve forgotten their names. 

I thank them their ways with me. Their giving goes on.

I wish I recalled thanking them all. I thank them their ways.

ROCK ON MY ROOF    by JMMJ

There’s rock on my roof, studded rock covered walls

Rock on my wood, crumbled and crushed

Mixed in with something

Applied with a brush

There’s rock in my yard where I step

Got little rock walls, piles of some left

Counter that’s broke under and around where I need the wood stove

Got pebbles and stones can be thrown

Some in your way, some polished and honed.

Rock holds up my home.

I long for when it’s silver, shiny, or gold.

I can spit in my hands, fill it with dust, roll it around, 

make marbles and shots, lose them, not mind,

make me some when I got me more time.

Some rocks have been squashed. Some they just come.

The earth spits them out like the teeth of a bum. 

Too big to budge, mountainously tall. Some you pick up. 

The ones in your shoe make you can’t walk.

Some we see as not to be moved.

Some we give, so forever you’ll stay.

I describe them as hard—I say like my head. 

Out of this rock, life came to live, 

leaving my feet a place to reside. 

Never gave it much thought–

never paid it much mind:

a rock of this size, hanging in space,

a rock so massive, no way and no need to escape.

Never gave it much thought—

never paid it much mind. 

A rock of earth’s size, just hanging in space. 

So massive, so vast, just hanging in space.

SWINGING by Denise R. Simon

I keep swinging away

Floating through the air

And I see you down there, riding that train

I keep swinging away

Breathing in deep

Hoping you can get some sleep

And I keep swinging away

Praying for you and hoping…

All I can do is keep hoping

And loving you until you love yourself

And we can keep swinging away

Floating through air carefree together.

SKYE  by Denise R. Simon

The gift of a beautiful skye

Sweetness and loving

Being there always now. 

How all that love came free

Came to me.

No inspiration filtering through

This skye is black not blue

Those golden eyes

Burn like sunny skies

So elegant and beautiful

But totally unaware

Thinking only about happy and run and treat

And I love you Mommy, my mommy

True beauty that is blissfully, completely,

Thoroughly unaware. 

Somehow it doesn’t seem fair. 

SWEAT  by Carol McCaffrey

He pulled the washboard from the bucket

Rubbed the metal with his shakin fingers

It was all he could make sound from there

Days the whisky had taken its toll

No more ukulele, no more banjo

Just the forever beat of the washboard

Kept him alive

Kept his feet tappin

That and another shot of whisky

The obsession isn't as strong, there was a time I thought it would never go away.  That it would always be there, holding on to me tight, never letting go, grabbing me at every turn, haunting my every dream.  But the harder I work the less of a hold it has over me.  They say it works if you work it, so I'm gonna work it cause so far it seems to be working and I am more than worth it!

I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You…

I’ve been meaning to say that I see you.
And I’ve been meaning to tell you that there is so much in my eyes when I see you.
I see struggle.
I see pain.
I see grief.
I see desperation.

And I also see Fire. Fight.
Imagination that never gives up.
I feel the energy of the fight you keep fighting, that I can’t fight for you.
But I can tell you that I see you doing it.
You're upright. Moving forward, even if it’s forward after many steps back.
You keep going, you keep stepping, and I wonder what you’re moving toward.
I wonder, because I know it’s something.
It’s important.
It’s meaningful and it’s life and it’s your life and
I’ve been meaning to tell you that you’re brave, and
Magically you, like no one else is-
Whether painting a mural to honor your dead friend who is invisible to everyone else, but now
never invisible again…
Or writing song lyrics that move me to shivering chills.
Or telling me a story in the way you do that makes me laugh and cry at exactly the same time,
all at once, like no one else can.

I’ve been meaning to remind you that your place in this world is like the top of the mountains
that you love so much, stretching toward the clouds.
Mysterious. Beautiful. Full of magic.
I wonder what’s up there?
I may never know, but I know it’s something and that’s all I need to know.

How It Shaped Me….

I don’t understand so many things…

Like how I used to love most all of every day
and how I thought the world was safe and kind
and how I believed in good things- like friends and magic and dreams and adventures.
And doing the right thing just because it’s the right thing,
And believing that that alone would make things okay.

And then addiction happened. Chaos. Destruction. Lies. Pain, and nothing that makes sense.

And then I got squeezed into a different shape and instead of feeling like a cloud spreading out
in the sky and softly filling up the day with the shapes of hope and life,
I shrunk.
I became hard and tight. Scar tissue.

I think in trying to protect myself, I clenched down inside myself and decreased my surface area
to allow as little exposure as possible.
I could not tolerate the touch of addiction, and its pain and hurt and fear.

But I don’t breathe well in that shape.

I want to expand back out into the softness of the clouds I see on many days up in the sky,
looking so peaceful and dreamlike.
I want to feel more like slow wind- coolish or just a little warm but always soft and gentle,
like the comfort I used to feel when my grandmother filled up the cookie jar and told me another
irreverent story and we could just laugh.
I still have that acorn cookie jar, and I can still smell the brown sugar smell now, 50 years later.

I want to return to the shape of easy laughter and deep breaths that contain the smell of love.

I Want To Forget It….

My brain. It won’t stop. It’s like tennis gone wrong and the balls are bouncing off walls that aren’t
even there. Thoughts, memories, shame- everything that’s gone wrong and it’s all my fault,
probably, and nothing good because you can’t remember the good when your amygdala is so
full of everything you want to forget. There is no room for the good when my brain is torturing
itself by assigning monumental importance to “the thing” I’ve done that I can’t even identify. It’s
almost arrogant, as if anything I’ve done should even have that much salience or take up that
much room in the universe.

And now it’s happening again- I can’t forget how selfish I am to want to forget…how dare I think
about letting go of the filler that would allow room for some peace if it were forgotten. Because
then I wouldn’t be doing penance any longer, and I can’t let that happen, I don’t deserve for that
to happen. So I’ll never let you forget.

But how about this…I’ll build a new room, make a new space to plant something different and
fresh- nothing fancy- even an old wicker basket on the back of a broken down bicycle will do- I’ll
just fill the basket with cool loamy soil and plant it full of wildflowers. Lean it against the shed out
in the garden. See what grows. Paint it turquoise blue, maybe. Look how beautiful that piece of
junk is now…and for a moment I forgot what was wrong not so long ago.

Magic comes from finding myself clean again a long time. After all my psycho-therapy, and cleaning out of my psycho-attic; after all that time and psycho deductibles, and sneezing in the afternoon psycho dust, and when it all clears and my relationship is still failing, I run into my Uncle Rick at the Price Chopper when he is buying kitty litter, and he tells me that he found the coolest place to work on himself and his Recovery.

            “You still not drinking, hunh?”

            “Yeah, Gregory.  But even more exciting is the Recovery Center.  There’s a bunch of meetings, and great people there, and it feels like they need some more energy.  I heard one lady in the front room say the computers are down again.  Well, I know computers.  So I worked one afternoon on the two old desktops, and they were so thankful.  The lady said ‘You worked magic.  Thank you.’  But it wasn’t magic at all, Gregory. It was just me looking on a good place to work on being sober and then I gave what I could.”

            “Sounds like Magic to me, man.” 

            My uncle smiles and nods.

            At the Granite-Cutter’s Union Hall In Barre, on a summer’s evening we gathered for an end of the year celebration of Writer’s For Recovery program. For a year folks in recovery from Alcohol and Drug Addiction gather weekly with a facilitator to write creatively and support each other’s writing. The Writers for Recovery program is cleansing and healing, simple and profoundly liberating; a brilliant creation of Northeast Kingdom artists Gary and Bess.

            I found, more invented a parking space beside a row of small SUV’s, compact cars, a saggy truck with a black bag of fragrant garbage and a gray Volvo station wagon.  Leaving my windows open to vent my own blossoming ambiance of apple cores and yesterday’s milk container, I looked at the clock on my flip-phone and shook my head. Late, just like my dad.  I had promised myself when I was a kid…Never mind.  Go in, Greg.

            I was expecting them to be started already, expecting them to be seated in rows with a speaker at the front, expecting them to turn around and look at me, expecting that I would mouth I’m sorry and that the silence would make me feel guilty. Instead the grand hall was flung with odd and regular couples standing, a man in glasses, a table with a sign-in sheet beside stack of books.

            I opened a cover and looked down the Table of Contents and found my name, Gregory Wells, page 46.  I looked up to see a woman smiling at me, and I know that I found the right place.

            “I almost doubled the size of this garden, Anne.  Gonna grow a double row for the food shelf! I used to struggle so hard in the spring to turn over the ground with a pitch fork, pull weeds with roots and soil clumps, and then my back was hurt for a day.  After, I had to go through with a rake, and only then I would have a garden to plant seeds.  Mound up rows for potato chunks, and make the rows fine enough to pant brown seeds, and hope and wait for rain.  Then notice a line of tiny green.  Look at it now, Annie.  Look at how much tilled soil there is!  I can grow a row of food for them because Trump is cutting funding.

            Later, when we are having tea in the shadow and the bugs are just coming out, Anne says “I was thinking about how you are now two years after your divorce, how your ex-wife never wanted you to have a tractor because, well, for whatever reason.  And now look at that, twice the garden for you, and you can grow potatoes for the food shelf.  You are doing well, Greg.  It is like a fresh start.”  She swatted a bug on her neck.

If you don’t believe me, I understand. Sometimes I don’t believe me, and I’m living this life. The sober life.

This week marks two significant milestones. July 16 is six months weed free. July 17 is twenty-four years free from alcohol.

How has my life changed? Significantly.

I’m not suffering from erratic mood swings.
I’m not paranoid.
I don’t stink.
I don’t end up in the back of cop cars.
I don’t fall down drunk.
I don’t spend the night in jail.
I don’t bring strange men home.
I don’t have valuable items go missing from my home.
I don’t black out.
I don’t try to put the pieces of the night together by  asking strange questions of the friends I was with who didn’t black out.
I don’t lose random pieces of clothing.
I don’t wake up hungover.

I do remember conversations.
I do respect myself.
I do take care of myself - physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I do read a lot more, and I remember what I read.
I do have a healthy sense of self-esteem.
I do love myself.
I do love you.
I do love my friends and my family.
I still count days. Do you?

This spring, I had the distinct pleasure of leading a five-week Writers for Recovery workshop with men incarcerated at the Northwest Correctional Facility in St. Albans VT. The participants in the group showed up, did the hard work of excavating deep emotions and difficult stories, writing down and sharing them, and supporting each other through the process. I wish we could have filmed and shared the whole workshop, as it would give many people about who is in prison and what they can offer the world. Thanks for reading, and don’t hesitate to share or comment!

Why I’m Not Good Enough

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

 
Why I’m not good enough

probably why I was given up

so as a boy I look to the sky with wonder

counting rain drop hearing the thunder

got a little bit older and started to dig

a ditch big enough a ditch so big

that when I put down my shovel and realized

a hole so I large I was buried alive

so I studied others and what I wanted

the girls the drugs all these things

then I started to hide behind a mask

my life started passing by so fast

not knowing where I was headed now

though circling and bending down

I got ready for whatever was to come

whether it be death or sale I still had it

better than some

wishes I saw long ago that a family I had

If I had just saw back than I

wouldn’t be looking back

What Really Matters

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

 What really matters....? This is a question I believe at some point everyone on this planet will eventually ask themselves. Although, I would imagine the answer isn't on a Q& A platform, rather one of a personal nature.. So I guess the question is; what really matters to me..? Again, although the question truly is relative in nature correct? Although; straight forward the answers are going to change; so if you are asking me now in my current endeavors I would answer or might answer getting out, loving my son, being present in said son’s life. not using or staying sober.. Although if you'd have asked me this question back in October of 2023 my answer might have been finding my fix, arranging how and what I’d do to find my next one or who and when I'd have to see or hurt or with whom I might have to compromise with to get said fix. Again if you'd have asked me in June of 2008 my retort would have been finding my best friend’s body and getting answers about whether or not he’d survived our drowning and how I was about to proceed with the rest of my life; so what really matters? Well it depends on where one’s at in life and whether or not they're living their BEST LIFE....!!

Why I’m Not Giving Up

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

Sad to say there’s no such

thing as luck,

why I’m not giving up.

I’m saved,

set free from sin,

that’s almost enough.

Why I’m not giving up

I have a savior,

His Name Is Jesus

I’m Living in His Love.

Why I’m not giving up

this isn’t my first life

this time I’m doing it right

so I can humbly come out on top.

Why I’m not giving up

I have before,

look where it got me,

A jail sentence,

A kick in the butt.

Why I’m not giving up

my past has strengthened me

I have new opportunities

I have a half full cup.

Why I’m not giving up

I have what’s best

Better than all the rest

My Heavenly Father from above.

Why I’m not giving up

If You Would Only Listen

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

If you would only listen—

you might hear a heartbeat.

Maybe yours, mine, the world’s

isn’t that neat?

I you would only listen-

you could hear their cry

“Who’s” you ask

Not yours at least

but if it was—would that be fine

If you would only listen—

I know you could learn.

Wisdom, understanding,

compassion, empathic concern.

If you would only listen—

You could hear God speak

Know Your Purpose

that you’re not worthless

and that He wants to give you peace.

When I Was a Kid

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

When I was a kid

I was innocent

I didn’t know right from wrong

Like Adam and Eve

Before sin was born

Making people sing sad songs

When I was a kid

I was hurt every way possible

Don’t be sad, It made me strong

To carry a Love to all

Showing them they can grow

that nothing is impossible

If You Would Only Listen

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

If you would only listen you might

hear a voice in the deep

If you would only listen you might hear

me searching for my keep

If you would only listen you might

find me crying alone

If you would only listen you’d fall in

line, one of their drones

If you would only listen you might

understand my heart

If you would only listen you’ll find

the moment at which this did start

If you would only listen you might find

me in my mask

If you would only listen I might stop

looking into the past

If you would only listen you will

understand my quick descent

If you would only listen you might

be able to prevent

If you would only listen I might not

have become myself

If you would only listen you’ll see

me in my hell

When I Get Tired..!

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

When I get tired I wonder will I stop

When I get tired it’s when I pop

When I get tired I make bad choices

When I get tired is when I hear all the voices

When I get tired I might bend a knee

When I get tired I no longer am me

When I get tired I lose all control

When I get tired I think of what’s above and below

When I get tired will I stop and listen

When I get tired is when the snake does his hissing

When I get tired you might not like who you see

When I get tired I don’t even recognize me

When I get tired is when I let the evil flow

When I get tired I lose all control

When I get tired of this life will it end

When I get tired will I put down this pen

When I get tired I’m no longer this innocent child

When I get tired I finally rest after all these miles

When I get tired they will lower me into the icy cold ground

When I get tired I no longer be lost but finally found

When I get tired buried below all the sod

When I get tired I’ll finally be before my God

What Really Matters

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

To come to America and start a new life with a different view and try to rebuilt your future

What really matters is to get married and find out the person was not the one who you are thinking to building a life with!

What really matters is to try to be a better person if the society treats you different and always makes things hard!

What really matter is now I don’t just feel love for people but for myself.

What really matter is if I die and don’t find peace and love inside me.

When I Was a Kid

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

When I was kid always thinking that this

is just something easy when I was kid I

jump to place to place and smile to see what brings so much good to myself and

when I was a kid I never thought that I could grow up and try to be a man and

when I was a kid I smelled flowers in my morning

and brought happiness to other people and

when I was a kid, I never had to change my mind because I was perfect and feeling strong.

When I was a kid judgement was not this

I was always considering only forgiveness, was what I always said

Listen

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

Listen about what I have to say and listen to my voice and if you listen you can feel my pain and if you listen you can see things hurt my future. If you listen you can touch my heart and help me to understand. And if you listen you can know where I am come from. And if you listen you will maybe stop trying to change me and try to move with me and find a way to bring me to the light.

I Am From

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

I am from Brooklyn where you

have to make a name for yourself in order

to be seen.

I am from a small hood made

up from only four blocks.

I am from where they rap about

the shit that really goes on in the streets.

I am from where you gotta make

it happen on your own, to get what

you want. I am from where

people die before they even become

an adult. I am from where the

police are here to fuck with

you rather than protect you.

Poetic Blue

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

Poetic Blue inside her fine lines

Lie the quality of a strong mind

Poetic Blue, Defines a Queen, with goddess-like signs,

An hour glass figure that’s sweeter than a blueberry vine.

Poetic Blue, Within lies a justice, and divine equity.

Built for the future scales.

Poetic Blue. Wisdom becomes hers through

Faith in what she cannot see.

Poetic Blue Justice is Blue and Dripping Hatred So poetically.

Poetic find me sad, fined me happy, find me flowing,

Like a river

Splashing and crushing, twisting and turning toward

The End without Warning

But loved for Creating themes of

Love, Truth, Lips that puff and Hands that Mold. A heart

To a heart, a soul with a Soul.

Poetic old poetic mold. Poetic Wood

Poetic told poetic eyes, Poetic Times

Last Kiss of poetic Words, forever, and

Ever Missed, Poetic Yours

Some Advice From Someone Who Knows

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

You never know how things can get

until you end up somewhere you never

expected to be, but always hoped to

reach, and that’s when you receive some

advice from someone who knows.

Things can get real bad if you

don’t take some advice from someone

who knows.

Yet you never know until you’re the

one that’s giving advice

as the person who knows.

Why I’m Not Giving Up

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

I have lots of people that look up

to me that’s why I’m not giving up

My sibling and my loved

ones would be crushed by the thought

of me giving up.

I won’t give up

because I know what it’s like

when you achieve what you want when

you push through it

I been through so much just to

get here so why would I give

up.

I always been the strongest

that’s why I’m not giving up.

If You Would Only Listen

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

If you would only listen you

would get what I feel inside

If you would only listen you’d

know that you’re the one in which

I confide

If you would only listen you could

tell I truly want you to be mine

If you would only listen without

you I’m running blind

If you would only listen ask me

questions give your opinions just take

the time

If you would only listen the

truth is you’re coming home then

I’d be fine.

When I Was a Kid

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

When I was a kid everything was great, mom always had piles of good yummy food on my plate. Visiting grandparents, playing sports, not a care in the world except to throw a ball with my dad in our yard or learn to wrench on my bike with Dad’s tools and show the other neighborhood kids. I was great at fishing and swimming, traveling was fun. Now I’m old and in trouble not so much fun. I wish I could go back to sleepovers and board games and Christmas with my sister, mom and Dad, sliding in the snow. Where my life will end up no one will know.

Penny candy and spending time with my family.

I Am From

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

I am from Congo Demoncraticque and

I am from two different families who bring

me to this world with no Love and cry fierce

I am from this big place call Kinshasa where

every people have a right to get to live and find a

way to a better life. No matter what is so difficult,

they try every way they can to reach their

dream. But they always have in mind

that one day the future is going to be offered to them.

I am from this beautiful woman who fought

to get her free life. That was difficult

because she had to decide to live for her

kids and go to prepare a life for them.

So I am from strong people and love.

I WASN'T SURE..?

by Anonymous (Northwest Correctional, Swanton, VT)

I wasn't sure how to be a man

I wasn't sure the tracks in the sand

I wasn't sure if you were real

I wasn't sure if you would listen

I wasn’t sure of the reflecting glisten

I wasn't sure if I was up or down

I wasn't sure if I were the king or the clown

I wasn’t sure why inside felt like an endless pit

I wasn't sure if I truly fit

I wasn’t sure in the beginning

I wasn't sure if I had finished sinning

Wasn’t sure if I should fall

I wasn’t sure if anyone heard my call

I wasn’t sure when my feelings shifted like tectonic plates

I wasn’t sure what it meant these metaphorical internal earthquake

I wasn’t sure how to be okay

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to wake each and every day

I wasn’t sure if you were me or I was you

I wasn’t sure if eternity was true

I wasn’t sure how to push reset

I wasn’t sure if we’d even ever met

I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to do this

I wasn’t sure although I really do wish

I wasn’t sure WHY I WAS

I wasn’t sure SO JUST BECAUSE

“Heavy is the Head That Wears the Crown” copyright Sedricka Morris

I'm the one who took a stand & said no!
The one who changed the narrative & let the past go.

Seeing through blurry lies within the veil.
The truth is hard to accept, but the truth I shall tell.

I'm the one who left & broke away.
The one who saw the generation curse & didn't let it stay

Eager to improve & be a better me.
So when it's my turn I'll raise a healthy family.

I'm the one, not the two or the three, to do what
My ancestors need & want for me.

I took a look at myself.  My mother had embarrassingly shouted “I am so proud of you, have a great day at school, Nellie.”  As if it weren’t enough for a grown woman to have to get dropped off?

Sidling up behind me was my former boss, the one from the place I had just left.  The one with all the complicated feelings attached. 

“Nel?”  

How awkward every moment is when you are not introspective.  Hornets to hornet. 

“Oh, I heard that in HR that you were…” 

“You heard how I talked you up, I hope?”

Or sometimes you are introspective, or at least trying. And the efforting  becomes a yoga breathing exercise where you are not sure if you can breathe…I had a director whom I hated in college with her decaf-half-calf-nutmeg-sprinkled soy lattes and back massages; I know now that she’s who I talk like now, and that I would have be delighted to know her now if she were part of my current sangha. She would make us do some hippy-dippy breath work, and I would excuse myself to go out for a smoke.

I just got a message that in this interim job, I have a pay cut, and I got a message that a dress I like is on sale for less than 4 dollars.  I have been buying so many clothes trying to reconstruct my life, that I cannot even get a sense of what I am doing.  

I want to work where I am needed. I need to be values-based, fall in love with my experience, every move needs to be one from a deeper, higher part of me. I have always been the eager puppy on staff.  

I did not realize how much money I made last year.  

I spent it all on worry. I spent it on economic insecurity.

I took a look at myself when my friend fell on the step, so many people rushed to help her.  Grabbed her book, wallet, eyeglass case… handed them to me. When a young man asked if he could help her, she turned to him fully, and said, ‘yes’.  She’s the kind of woman who in asking for help, knows how to pull up her pants— proverbially, and literally. 

"It's how we deal with aging," she quipped.

Over the ensuing coffee, she helped me with these conversation threads and sewed them together in a beautiful recovery sweater,

whom to trust: (me) 

how not to spend money,

 how to find self-worth, 

(punctuating some of the stories with a well tied knot of, "that's ridiculous!" "You were doing the best you could." "No one could have done what you were asked to do in the circumstances you were doing that." "That reminds me of..." "and I think about that person, trying to hang on, and it kept me doing service for that meeting maybe a little longer than I should." "There's no way we will ever get a topic about 'gut transplants & fecal matter' ever again... we had something special, and now, it's just another meeting.")

how to get out without escaping.

Even when there's this new look at myself, I may still keep looking.

I took a look at myself.
I didn’t like what I saw. 
Once again, my inner critic crucified me.

You’re too fat.
You’re too old.
You’re ugly.

This floored me.
I’m none of those things.
My inner critic held firm.

'Fuck you’, I screamed.
You’ve been harassing me for 56 years.
At 62, I deserve to accept my body, my wrinkles, myself.

I’ve never done this.
Has any woman ever done this?
Accept themselves?

We’ve been advertised to ad nauseam.
Eat this. Don’t eat that.
Drink this. Don’t drink that.
Exercise, exercise, exercise.
Wear this. Don’t wear that.

There was a time when I curled up in front of the boob tube watching ‘What Not to Wear.’
For years, I took advice from a man and a woman who tore through people’s closets tossing their clothes out and dressing them anew. 
I bought into it. 
The clothes were not even my style.

I’ve bought into everyone’s ideas about what is right.
What is attractive.
No more.

I took a look at myself again.
Crows feet and all.
Silver hair.

I looked myself in the eye in the mirror.
I said to myself, ‘I love you Jackie…
I love you just the way you are.’

Click Image to Watch Video

‘Reclaiming Our Stories” was a live Zoom featuring written work from inmates at Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility read by three professional actors and other invited guests. If you missed the original performance, you can watch it by clicking the image above. “Reclaiming Our Stories” was led by WFR Workshop leader Carol Adinolfi, and was a collaboration among Writers for Recovery, Threshold Collaborative, and the Vermont Department of Corrections. We want to thank Carol for her the inspiration and for shepherding the process, the writers for generously sharing their wonderful work, the readers for treating this work with the respect it deserves, and the DOC for giving us permission to bring this project to the public. Special thanks goes to John Lugar, who donated time to edit the video and make it look fantastic, despite some Zoom glitches that you may notice, but that he was in no way responsible for. Please enjoy this amazing work, and share it if you can. The voices of the men of Marble Valley are voices that need to be heard.

I am from being their pride; to being their disgrace

I am from a small family made large

I am from intellect and hard work

I am from a class of over 100 to less than 20 alive

I am from a place you'll miss if you blink

I am from my FATHER not in BLOOD although in LOVE

I am from a place I slowly forget

I am from a voice I no longer remember a face I no longer recognize

I am from my Family Clan and I proudly HOLD

I am from being found to being lost

Before me lay a  map though a key washed away

Through armor built thicker each and every day

I am from a burning desire and unquenchable FIRE

Flames that RISE flames which DEVOUR

I am ME; I am no longer FREE I am locked tightly behind Rose of concrete

Athough NONE the less I am FREE 

Done means finished, over, basta, no way

to do it right, no way to do it wrong

it’s done whether a lose or won:

jobs slashed by the billionaire class

Relief ripped from the needy, home and abroad

social security on the block

the Art of the Deal and its malevolent cock,

grinningly Replaced freedoms with repressions

buried Rosevelt at last

his policies crammed into the rubbish

traded for cash in the banks of the wealthy

what a bitch to reconcile

Recovery may be long and hard

Project 2025 come fully alive

Can we Reform the powers in their demonic towers?

Push ‘em back, give ‘em the sack?

What I got done.that day was, in retrospect, surprising to me, impressed me. A day of "exposure therapy," she called it. Walking into the church of my childhood and responding fully to the parishioners who were fans of my younger self. Bringing my body to the lake and subjecting my feet to its wrath. Approaching the house, seeing my old friend's car in the driveway, and unwaveringly facing her in the garage. Entering my old place of employment for the first time since leaving it. All made possible by asking for the right thoughts and actions, it seems.

Empathy has morphed

into a dirty word, these days

considered too woke

by the new techno Right

vilified by the president’s henchman

empathy is now eschewed

as weak and feminine

incompatible with strong and virile

incompatible with rich and ruthless

empathy might rob their cupboards 

of hoarded wealth, they fear

oh dear, have I offended

by my critique? quick,

into the closet of my thoughts

before they root me out


and stuff me away as gay

or any other pretext 

to vex and protest

responsible action

I warmed the milk but to what temperature I wasn’t sure. I didn’t have a thermometer. The recipe called for it to be 110 but my finger wouldn’t read anything. So I went on with my recipe as if all was as it should be, leaning on my knowledge of cooking to carry me through to the successful final rise of my loaf of bread. I recently ran across a quirky saying-Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. I wasn’t sure. When we signed the papers for our house over to the young family of Bakers (no pun intended-that’s really their name) I wasn’t sure how I would feel when we handed them the keys. The thermometer read -6 degrees, my finger read SOUTH. Then, I was sure. 

I got the message loud and clear.

Go to rehab or you’re fired.

That was twenty four years ago.

March 2001.

I stayed sober for exactly one month.

Kicking and screaming, I dove back down the rabbit hole.

Just a little weed.

Just a little alcohol.

Off to the races of 24/7 inebriation.

Until I got it.

I have alcoholism.

Bodily and mentally different.

Can’t metabolize it.

A mind consumed with controlling it.

A body allergic to it.

The second recovery began 7/17/2001 and lasted for well over a decade.

Then my drug of choice became pills.

Pills for pain.

Pills for anxiety.

Pills for depression.

Pills to sleep.

Then I started stealing my husband’s opioids.

Soon I was nodding off at my desk.

Nodding off in my living room.

Then the magic elixir.

Weed to to titrate off the pills.

Weed mixed with nicotine worked.

Until it didn’t.

Don’t let anyone tell you weed isn’t addictive.

I’m on my second, or is it my third weed recovery.

The night sweats.

The nightmares.

The erratic emotions.

The rage.

Today is 90 days.

Again.

Feels good to be free.

To be honest.

To really embrace being me.

Surefooted walking over rocks along lake champlain, my lithe tall body, with my legs in a french cut bathing suit, I am from here, I don’t know how old I am 

I  have memories of these places, of inside of trailers at a sleepover, of Haley’s comet, and Hale Bop,

Smokefilled living rooms watching Night of the Living Dead as first graders where there is Sammy Hagar Van Halen and a place in the basement to rollerskate to Madonna

I know the woods, and I walk the new  trails

I have followed a dog to see the crocus and the larch, 

and the plastic among the mulch

I had a dead battery, a wrong map, no x marks the spot, and I was terribly afraid to find my way back to the shores, so I have made every excuse, but not for my behavior.

This is where I was hurt.

I have no friends from high school. Heck, the only real friends I have are recovery buddies; they are the only ones who know how to be sneaky and to call me, so I can drop the mask with them. We have the same one that we picked up as some party favor, and so we can hand it over when the next one exits the rooms.

The relived violence, mostly to myself again. Missing the mark, getting here and trying to escape rather than leaning in to the experience.  Ingrate brat.  

And so all the murder I did in my head on so many, not following the routes, have come to this terminus.

I lacked curiosity: no investigations or explorations, just contempt prior to investigation:

 old tapes and all loops– I have to take a step back to see.

Still, logic slams down feelings like a wet dough I have to punch at for a while. 

I know that I have to assemble all of the little parts of me to have enough. It’s gonna take some substance  to get a job, or wake with the alarms, got to put my big girl pants on, gotta move away again, turn the key, get the engine sparked to restart my life.

But as I go pensively, I rediscover this broken shell of myself along the water, or this little splintered rock that I would have crushed into make up pretending to be a native woman splashing in the waters, making mud pies, I do not know how old I am.

I am attracted to the shiny. I panned for gold at a tourist spot in California so I thought all gold was the shiny bits in even Lake Champlain. The parts that are me are so fragmented; yet they are glitter. I am assembling them fleck by fleck sifted through my fingers into a  goldfish gladlock from a prize booth at the Franklin County fair circa 1992. I will be squishy for a while, as a bobble, and glurp to interviews,  and I will scintillate.

When they announced it in the staff newsletter that I had resigned, when really, my job wasn’t renewed, people congratulated me for making the decision to get out. Did I see how sick this was making me? No fault of their own, but my mad head of lead could not think of a kind and gracious response. 

Do you know where you are going?  

I know it is not here anymore.  

But I wasn’t sure. 

Click Image Above to Hear the Writers for Recovery/Vermont Public Podcast Featuring Mark LeGrand

It is with great sadness that Bess and I learned of the passing of incredible human, stalwart recovery advocate, and Vermont music legend Mark LeGrand.

Mark’s impact on country music in Vermont was unparalleled. From his teen years onward, he played and sang in numerous bands and produced critically-lauded albums of his own work. He learned his craft from listening to his musical heroes, from Willie and Waylon to Billy Joe Shaver, Rodney Crowell, Townes VanZandt and others who set the highest of bars for songcraft. Mark’s own songs told stories of struggle, of love, of hope. They lived up to the standards of Mark’s idols, and he delivered them with total humility, which was one of his trademarks.

In recent years, Mark, his wife Sarah Munro, and some of the best players in Central Vermont had been a regular fixture in the little club at the corner of Montpelier’s Elm and Langdon Streets. The name of the place changed, but Mark was always there, with a cool-as-ever cowboy lid and a voice that filled the room with warmth and emotion. I was lucky enough to be there for many of those nights, and I count them as some of the most enjoyable times I have ever spent. Mark sang ‘em all, often in gorgeous duets with Sarah, from his original tunes like Don’t Trouble Trouble and  Shipwrecked Love, to rock-solid covers, of which “Rainy Night in Georgia” was my personal favorite.

Less generally known but perhaps even more impactful was Mark’s work in the recovery community. Mark deeply understood addiction and recovery from personal experience, and he generously gave to uncountable people in need of support. He was always there, with an open ear. He never judged, and when he spoke to you with that unshakeable faith and deep, resonant baritone, you knew that someone real was on your side. At this very moment, there are thousands of people in Vermont whose lives are better for Mark’s work and his impact on themselves, their friends, and their families. I am one of those impacted. When I reached out to Mark years ago, I was beaten down and desperate, and without his love and wisdom, I don’t know where I would be today.

Mark never stopped giving to recovery. When Bess and I asked him to perform at our Writers for Recovery book publishing events, he jumped on board, and brought the real life of addiction onto the stage through his songs. And he was featured in the Writers for Recovery/VPR podcast My Heart Still Beats, where he generously shared his story with people across Vermont and around the world.

Several days before he died, Mark posted a Facebook message:

 “Love each other, tell each other you love them often and harbor no resentments. Forgive everyone and everything. Live each day and never give in to fear. I love each and every one of you. Peace on earth will come someday.”

 Mark was generous to the end, and he will be missed. All of us at WFR send our condolences to Sarah, and to the rest of Mark’s family and friends.

i came here to feel safe -

to write -

to feel alive –

to laugh – to smile –

and to cry if need be

i came here for me -

to fill my cup

to pour into other cups

to be a link in the chain

a connection between dots

i came here

because i’m supposed to -

because this is where life

has led me to be

i came here

because the world

is frosty – cold - and unforgiving

so i came here

for a cup of hot coffee

to feel warmth - to feel energized – to feel alive –

and to be –

where i belong