Released

I would
let go
Anxiety, planning,
obsessional thoughts about my stomach,
my whole
body,
my work,
free time,
life

I would not allow these to pull me away from myself,
to control my confidence,
the words I speak or leave unspoken

I would give my body a thousand kisses
I would dance almost every moment
My body;
a piece of the sky above me
I’d move like the clouds

I would ,
somehow,
let go…

No more tension about not being good enough,
thin enough,
sick enough

There would be no more punishment or shame,
no more sickening knots of anxiety and fear in my stomach

I would treat myself as a monarch butterfly;
with love, with awe
I would believe you when you say
“You are beautiful”

Go, Kurtis!

Yes, that's Kurtis Thompson of our Barre WFR group looking stylish in the 2016 Vermont Arts Council Annual Report. In the right-hand corner below, you'll see the gang who read at our last Barre reading. You can read the annual report here.

We'd like to thank the Arts Council for generously providing funding to help keep WFR moving forward. We are grateful for this and proud to be featured. Thanks, Arts Council! 

I find it so easy to complain, I often forget why I should be grateful. Where would I be if I were not here right here, right now?

I would be dead!!!

I have cheated death at least 3 times, probably even more than that.

There may have been a time that I’d rather have died, but today I am grateful to be alive.

I have a new outlook on life and I am grateful for that, too.

I’m no longer selfish as I once was.

I have learned to love others.

I am grateful to my father, my mother, my sisters, and my brother.

I witnessed the miracle of birth three times.

First was March 27th, 2003 when Ryley Ann Smith was born.

Again January 14th, 2005 when Ayden Jay Smith was born.

Last, but certainly not least, February 27th, 2012 when my baby girl Jocelynn Leigh Smith arrived on Earth.

All 3 children share my name.

Not only am I grateful, I am also proud.

What I am truly grateful for is this opportunity for a second chance. This time I won’t take life for granted.

It occurs to me
that I don't know how to love;
I don't know how to love me,
and I don't know how to love you, too.

I am lost
in the dark.
It is such a lonely place in which to be.

Yet now I have this truth,
like a black and garish idol, square-toothed and rectangle-grinning, like a floating compass stone
suddenly unspinning.

Am I really lost,
at the center of a terrible truth? Can there be a terrible truth? Am I really gone,
caught in the darkest spiral?
Is the dark really dark,
inside the golden angle?
And am I really alone
with this new truth, this totem?

The idol is made to gold.
Yes;
once grisly slick and monkey-grinning, the grime now rimes a glow.
The truth
is made
of gold,
and so my time
is spun to gold --
teased,
gathered,
and worsted bright
from the blackness
in my soul.

And so the dark

becomes the light; the cloudy ink illuminates.

Maybe it always could.
Coming from nothing except ourselves, the color is of the mind.

That is what is meant,
when describing the philosopher's stone; the sinker becomes a sponge
when turning lead to gold;
the alchemy is of the mind.

And St. John said,

". . . the truth
shall make you free."

Yet what shall come of me? What shall I become,
now I see
the world anew?

For still I am alone.
Still I can not love me,
and still I can not love you, too.

All this golden truth,
all this painted color,
and still must I move from one place to another.

With sinker turned to compass stone, and spiral turned to mountain slope, to love myself
I must move toward love.

I must trust that movement to be enough;
to be a dream ascension unto itself;

my love for all of us
will be met in that same motion. 

THE PLACE I REMEMBER BEST IS the old apple tree next to the long driveway of my old childhood home. My dad had nailed three boards across a flat fork in the tree where the branches split off, rising in two different directions. I would climb up in my tree to the haven of my own special place. I felt like I never belonged and didn't really fit in with the neighborhood kids. I played with them, at their homes and mine, but I had that deep seated feeling that I wasn't one of them. So, I'd get a good book and climb up into my platform spot in the tree, back against an upright limb and READ.

This place that I remember best is the safe spot where I would launch my mind into new places of acceptance where I was privy to all that was happening. The shipwreck: Alex Ramsey cast overboard and the Black Stallion swimming by him. I grabbed that halter line along with Alex and ended up stranded on a desert island trying to figure out how to feed myself and a horse. On another day I'd be following Nancy Drew searching for clues that would solve The Mystery of Larkspur Lane.

In my place that I remember best I was never alone, did not feel shy nor unaccepted nor did I incur the wrath of my mother or big brother or sister. I would read and read and couldn't wait to turn the pages. My special place offered me safety, excitement, wonder and amazement that I could travel so far seated in that one spot. One summer I tried to read 100 books and win a coveted certificate. Then I would travel while seated. Now my multitude of friends join me on an IPOD so that I can garden, hike, paint, make pottery or drive.

I still think with longing of my old apple tree, in the yard of my first home that has now not been mine for over 50 years, the place that I remember best: my first safe spot.

Late on a Wednesday night in this fortress of deprivation known as prison, I read a novel titled Darkness Visible by William Styron. This novel finally gave words to the wordless and stood up for the tragic mute on matters of describing their monstrous illness and great tormentor of mind and soul. This book, wonderful in its ability to represent all who silently suffer, lit up emotions deep within me. I felt feelings of familiarity and the urgency to shout out to the four corners of the Earth that William Styron found a way to describe to the millions of human beings who are otherwise incapable of understanding, the full gravity of suffering this dark beast within causes.

The sad truth is that the majority of silent sufferers fail through no fault of their own to explain to the healthy of mind just how paralyzing, painful, imprisoning, and hopeless this very serious illness actually is. In many ways society remains stuck in the 1950s when it comes to treating mental illness and showing compassion to those who suffer from it. There are far too few facilities in existence designed to properly treat the ailments of the mind because humankind has not made it a priority. There are far too many prisons filled with but unequipped to treat the mentally ill. All too many times the mentally ill are told by strangers as well as those who are closest to their own hearts that mental illnesses such as depression are just labels created to coddle the weak. Far too many time the sufferers are told by people who have no idea what it means to suffer from depression, anxiety, and the like that they need to “buck up” or “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” This kind of “tough love” is especially cruel.

Imagine figuratively if you will being locked in a cage with a dark, formless creature whose sole purpose for existence is to oppress your mind into an exhausted state of defeat. Now imagine that while you are in this cage , you are in the center of a massive crowd of people who do not see the cage or the creature and therefore do not understand why you don’t join them. The crowd cannot understand how bad you are suffering from this excruciating pain or why you fail to perform even the most basic functions of self-care, much less the more rigorous functions of modern society. This is chronic depression.

Now imagine a second formless beast in the same cage, this one fiery red, who then places you in a constant state of utter panic and terror. You become fearful for your life and are completely convinced that some way, somehow, you are doomed. You then cannot sleep, cannot eat, suffer aching pain, have the shakes and you begin to experience cold sweats and nightmares. While you are in this agony, people in your life who do not think mental illnesses are real cannot understand why you do not partake in frivolous activities and then they become offended. This is generalized anxiety.

One last time I call upon your imagination that you might envision yourself suffering from these terrible conditions for hours, days, months, years, and even decades. This is unending suffering. Perhaps then you can understand why thousands of human beings each year kill themselves and why thousands more hole up inside their homes. Still history has shown us examples of human beings who have long suffered from mental illnesses, but who still left a positive mark on the world. People like Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allen Poe, and Vincent VanGogh, to name a few. Having read Darkness Visible, I am surprised by the stark similarity that the author’s descent into madness has mirrored my own. Without fail, Styron has intelligently mapped out and one might even say decoded the mystery of depression, which always seems to baffle so many who do not suffer from it. It is my hope that society finally becomes aware.  

They must think that we are mad. With the yelling at all hours, and the breaking of things. With the cars in the driveway, and the people that come and go.

The screaming match in the front yard last week, even I don’t know what the fight was about. The cops probably flip a coin to avoid coming to our house. Our dog barks at anything, and my mom sits on the front steps anxiously awaiting someone to walk by, her voice hoarse from talking to herself, the words just pouring out.

My brother has some seedy business going, anger in his eyes when I look at him as if I want to talk to him. My father never home and my grandmother trying to quietly live her life on her own.

I hate what I think of my home, so I wonder what the neighbors must think.

It wasn’t just once.

There were many times.

Over many years.

Exhausted, sick, ashamed, disgusted with myself so many times.

But I am prideful.

I am arrogant.

I got on my knees.

Begging.

Praying on bathroom floors, in hallways, in front of the mirror.

But then things got better.

So I had to make them worse.

By deciding I had the swagger or I just don’t care.

I’d dive right back in and swim.

Really push off and glide into oblivion.

Then oblivion left and reality crashed back down.

And who was that in the mirror?

Why was she back?

What the hell was I thinking?

I wasn’t thinking.

I was lashing out or jumping in.

And it just kept coming back to this big letdown.

And disappointment.

My greatest fear.

To be a disappointment.

My greatest strength is a product of my father.

It comes from words which I despised hearing.

Words that would confuse me, trap me, make me do things I knew were wrong.

Don’t be a quitter he would say, and you have a lousy attitude!

My mind insisted I never give up. So afraid to give up. Fear unnoticed.

My attitude cost me so much in life. Never quitting kept me stuck.

Today, my attitude keeps me sober and alive, by choice.

Today, I never quit, never give up, by choice.

We recently did a reading at the Bookstock Book Festival in Woodstock, VT. Here's a video of the whole thing. Enjoy!

It is with great sadness that we just learned of the death of Henry Laszlo Ecker-Racz, who was a member of our Newport Writers for Recovery group. Just 27, Laszlo was an incredible athlete, an avid hunter and fisherman, and a voracious reader of all subjects who could invigorate any discussion with his intellect and good spirit. He was a wonderful writer as well. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts as you read his work "Here is Why I'm Not Giving Up."

Here is Why I’m Not Giving Up

by Laszlo Ecker-Racz

Before I ever encountered the blissful surrender of substances, I was confronted with the terrible weight of knowledge. The overthought effects of my actions, the sheer terror of the realities of this world, gross and imagined. The death, wars, starvation, abuse. I felt childlike; there is a universal solution that lies within each individual. There is a way to relinquish something, that assuages all the cascading effects of negativity, anger, selfishness.

Then came drugs. After the Zen-like release of exercise to oblivion, which always left something more in the tank. (I was dubbed the masochist by all my high school athletic teams as I would push until I couldn’t any longer then push more—often running 100-200 miles a week, not including calisthenics.) After the dreamy Sutric trance of sex, which always left an egotistical self-evaluation which was left wanton then came the drugs. The complete release of any desire to do better, to change anything. The understanding that all is as it is, and can be enjoyed, in oblivion with the complete surrender of self.

But there was never enough oblivion. The endless nothingness seemed never to last. Interesting the infinite expanses of suchness when time does not exist in human terms, goes by instantly. A forever within seconds.

And so I am confronted by another problem to which the solution lies within myself. It appears to be a perpetual pattern, geometric, physical, biological, from which I cannot escape by turning away. So I have to exceed it, embrace it, use it ‘til it runs out.

Now I am the proud father of two children who will soon be intellectually facing the same philosophical conundrum of growing up, living. It is now more than just within myself that I seek the solution. To see the light within myself and my children and all those around me. To change the perspective from self-loathing, deprecatory analysis to peaceful, graceful, loving acceptance, understanding. The answer is within each of us but the light lives for me lives within my children, and for them because they are I, and I will never give up. 

Sobriety is our greatest asset

It is of course a way of life that demands rigorous honesty

And to be honest with you using drugs or alcohol in any fashion

Is against everything that I choose to believe in

So if I want to be real about my new way of life

I have to say no to drugs.

Say no to the spirits.

And say yes to abstinence

And say yes to continue to live a new way of life.

Though this may be the first time you’ve heard your footsteps here, the path is not a new one.

The sights and smells, the new colours, are just one you’ve never seen before

Make no mistake, every inch of progress is yours to make.

Every quagmire is yours to cross, different in its own way for you …

            …But that trap, that tar pit, that river over there …

            that crocodile.

            They’ve all be here all along to ensnare anyone

            Anyone at all.

            Your sidestep is unique.

            Your cadence all your own.

            Your stripes put each of your footfalls into a footprint of any number of those who went before.

            Your machete clears a path for those following behind you in the jungle and when they reach out, when you reach back, you’re not showing them your path, any more than those who went before showed you yours.

Some advice for the newly

sober. Sobriety is not

a single victory, it’s a

war. An ongoing arm

wrestling match. However

if you love liberation

from the vices that drag

you into the muck more

than you love your fix,

then it’s a war you can

win. It’s about priorities,

willpower, and perspective.

Can you handle the pain

you’ve been hiding from

and subsequently become

stronger in so doing?

Or must you feel better

now in a way that’s

less empowering and more

generic? Are you willing

to cash out your

tomorrows for one

chemically altered today?

Or are your willing

to face reality soberly

and suffer now so that

you can save your future? 

Speak to me not down at me; I’m not trying to misbehave. Don’t yell speak softly I’m fragile, please try to understand. Don’t get mad if I can’t figure out quite what you mean. I’m trying my best despite how it seems. I’ll listen if you look at me and now down upon me and maybe if you weren’t raising your fist, I would wouldn’t worry you want to harm me. So please talk in a way I can listen. I’m not a bad person just misunderstood sitting in prison. 

If you were recently using and now you are sober

I gave some advice that you should think over

There’s more to this life than all the using

I know at first it can be confusing

To think you can have goals in the life

Like having a career or finding a wife

This life is your now that your addictions aren’t in it

You can do anything you imagine; the sky’s the limit

You must never forget the emptiness addiction brings

The happy parts you remember will haunt your dreams

You need to be stronger than when you were using

Don’t fall victim to the substances you were abusing

If you want to be satisfied in your ripe old age

You have to leave your past behind and turn the page 

This quite possibly will be the hardest thing you do, so pay attention. First thing you need to know is your life hangs in the balance. Second, you cannot do this alone. Reach out to someone in Recovery. Do something every day to replace your own habits with something else. You’ll find this puts your addiction at bay and makes life on life’s terms more tolerable. There’s gonna be hard days. Forgive yourself, and don’t give up.

The “Silent Butler” was an ornate 10”x12” highly polished silver box, resembling one of those antique bed warmers, but with a handle only ten or twelve inches in length, Rosewood, and delicate. I’m not even sure the correct name was “Silent Butler”, but that was what I polished to a brilliant shine, along with all the rest of the silver in the house, especially just prior to one of my Mothers’ Famous Cocktail Parties. Seriously. Famous. Society Pages. Mothers’ World was Blue Book, Social Register, Who’s Who… my Maternal Grandmother was a Zeigfield Girl, and Mother and my Aunt Margot were Debutantes… LA – DE – DA. My Fathers’ colleagues, Emmy, Tony, and Oscar winning Producers, Directors, Writers, Sound, Lighting and all the other Stage Technicians, Musicians,  Wardrobe, as well as all the Actors, Actresses, Dancers, you name it. My Father was in Television News, so it would not be unusual to find all the top folks from what my Father and I considered to be The Real World; although the News is often totally unbelievable. Truth is stranger than fiction, all right.

Once everything was prepared – perfectly – then it was time for my Sister and I to suit up – to put on our costumes. I usually had my Blue Blazer, Rep Tie, Loafers, Khaki Shorts – I wasn’t old enough for long pants yet. My Sister always looked like a miniature Jaqueline Kennedy. She didn’t have any specific duties besides meet and greet, curtsey, firm handshake, direct eye contact, remember everyone’s name, and generally be beautiful and charming and a direct reflection of my Parents Exquisite Parenting Skills. Trophy.

My job was different. I made a constant circuit through the events, maintaining all the same Social Graces – but – I would first tour with my trusty Silent Butler, emptying and wiping them out with a linen cloth. Then I would return with a silver tray and exchange everyone’s mostly finished cocktails with fresh ones, which I had mixed myself. I remembered everyone’s names, everyone’s drinks, and how to make them properly. I was really good at it. I was also nine. I wouldn’t be eligible for long pants until I was twelve. I was gifted with an incredible memory, and I was naturally articulate, and quite precocious. My Parents were sticklers – for Grammar, Diction, Enunciation, Pronunciation, Poise – all manners of Manners. I was a sensation. A Sideshow Freak.

I thrived on the attention because it allowed me to hide in plain sight. You see, all those mostly finished cocktails, I returned to the Kitchen table where I had a bar set up. I also had a pitcher, a strainer, a Tropicana Orange Juice Bottle, and a funnel. I strained all of those leftovers into the pitcher, and then poured it off into the bottle. I called it a Kamikaze, not knowing there was already a cocktail called a Kamikaze. I identified the very reason for all of the Adults’ reverie, the source, the premise for their gathering – in fact the motive – the inducement for these pageants of profligacy and excess… as the contents of those glasses. The effects of the consumption were obvious to me. From the very first time I gulped that elixir and felt the wave wash over me, I had arrived. Wherever I was going, I was there. The stuff in that glass made me feel funny, made my face numb, yet tickly-tingly, made my head a little whoopsied, but I did NOT want to get off this ride. I had one, or sometimes two of those bottles full of that special juice. Probably sixty percent or more melted ice, but I wasn’t even a teenager yet. I could only make a few laps with my tray before I was too unsteady to continue, andhad to relinquish my role to one of the members of my Parents’ inner circle.

At this point it would be time for me to make my final rounds, a very showy goodnight to all, and I would wobble off to my room with an empty promise from my Mother of being tucked in shortly. That almost never happened.

A few other things never happened. I never threw up, I was never hung over, I never got caught – hell, I was never even suspected. I did get the bedspins a couple of times, but I had somethingsimilar happen a couple of times before I ever had my first drink – so I never really thought of those events as related.

I had always been somewhat detached, I looked at life as though from the outside – but I even looked at myself from the outside. I didn’t feel a part of things, ever, and there were enormous gaps. Not just between events, but between moments. Time would advance imperceptibly. Slowly, so slowly it hurt. Then it would move all at once, and it could be months, or even years later before I even seemed to notice. Either way, I didn’t care. About anything.

Thankfully, I was just a kid. I had a highly underdeveloped alcoholic inside of me. I did not yet have cravings. I was not in trouble yet. I had not yet driven drunk, but only because I could not yet reach the pedals. That is, of course, a metaphor, but it is also not. I hadn’t burned anything yet, or anyone. I hadn’t broken anything yet, or anyone. I hadn’t stolen anything yet, or lied yet, or ruined anything or scared anyone or put anyone in jeopardy. Yet. I’d get around to all that soon enough.

It wasn’t long before I was drinking all the time. All The Time. I wasn’t always drunk, but I was never not drinking. The behavior may have been learned, but I had developed my own techniques, and in my humble opinion, I was well on my way to perfecting them. Not every bad decision I made was because of alcohol, but the very worst ones were while brimming with alcohol.

So, Alcoholism is genetic. Okay. If you say so. There is some evidence to support that.

You have a CHOICE. Maybe I did, once upon a time. Eventually, I didn’t have any choice at all.                                                                                            Complete Physical Dependence.

Peer Pressure. Learned Behavior. Developed Habit. It’s a Disease. That’s at least a fact. Is that important? I mean, it’s relevant, but is it important? I don’t think so. I’m an Alcoholic. One of the many symptoms is the chronic, progressive nature of Alcoholism. As my consumption increased dramatically, the sheer volume of alcohol ingested, the danger had to be obvious. Should have been. Wished it was. I was introducing such toxic amounts into my system, I should have been poisoned. Actually, if I ever had to stop for any reason, I would experience all of the detoxifying withdrawals that would indicate poisoning. It was frightening, or it should have been. But just as my consumption increased to dangerously toxicquantities, my decisions grew increasingly dangerous. I used Cocaine and Heroin for twelve years – smoked a trainload of Crack – found myself in the worstparts of every city in the middle of the night with a pocketful of money – acquired surreptitiously – either to score or to be robbed or to be beaten and robbed; yet somehow even with my precarious decline in health I could not be discouraged. Miraculously, my employers intervened, saving my life. I spent the next four months in an intensive treatment program, which began in a Hospital – and, while I haven’t used drugs since November of 1989, I did not address my Alcoholism, convinced I was different, convinced I could handle it. I didn’t get drunk for eight years, but when I finally did, I found myself in a barfight and in jail again, wondering what happened. Then I was back to drinking too much, too much of the time. A couple of wrecked vehicles, a few more fights, a few more lost jobs and an eventual bankruptcy and I still hadn’t realized the source of all my troubles. Scratchin’ my head.  Mix in a geographical change and I had the recipe for a host of opportunities I could ruin. Dozens of opportunities, dozens of last chances, countless broken dreams - all culminating in one horrendous, reprehensible event. In December 2007, I committed a Horribly Violent Crime, and when I finished serving my sentence, I discovered upon my release that my Loved Ones had FLED. My Home had been abandoned years before, and now it was all gone. Twenty Four Years in Vermont, and there wasn’t a scrap of paper to show for it.

I didn’t drink any more, and life had really begun to improve. The normal ups and downs of life that regular people experience had become customary – even expected. I should never have become so complacent. Perhaps Karma is cumulative after all. All of my past sins, all of the things I did and did not get caught for, every transgression, I sit here paying for them now.  No matter what happens now, I know I won’t make anything any better if I’m drunk.

 Besides, my Brain was starting to get a bit squishy. 

Sick of being lied to.

I’d like to see what truth could do.

No longer will I be manipulated.

I hope to fix this mess that lies created.

I want to be a better man.

To help my children understand.

Right from wrong, wrong from right.

If you love something, for it you must fight.

Sometimes I wonder why life has been so cruel.

It’s like a cosmic joke about a sadistic never-ending school.

At 6 months old my mom and dad divorce.

I was too young so it was not my fault of course.

So we moved to Nana and Papa’s in Washington.

I guess that’s as far as my mom thought she could run.

With Papa and his camper I visited every state before I was 4.

I don’t remember much but it was fun that’s for sure.

Then Papa went on a trip alone. It was a heart attack they said.

I didn’t know what that was. I cried myself to sleep in my bed.

Mom went to Disneyland® alone. She was gone most of the time.

I can remember my Nana telling here it was a crime.

We should have been taken along.

But I didn’t know if it was right or wrong.

Nana was good. We often slipped and called her mom.

She always had that way to keep a young boy calm.

At 5 years old the molestation came.

I told Nana. She made me apologize in shame.

What a wicked lie for you to tell.

If I kept it up, I would surely go to hell.

The abuse went on for 11 painful years.

But I never told again. I held on to my tears.

A new stepdad came at around that time,

And his dislike for me had no reason or rhyme.

His mental and verbal abuse along with abuse untold

Went on and on and became so old.

My hate for him was a childish answer to an uncontrollable fate.

I was only 5 1/2, and by then it was too late.

Grade school was a sham and didoes were lame.

My life was a mess when Jr. High came.

I was small and again came the abuse.

It was already there it just added to the misuse.

Garbage cans for lunch, a swirly in the bathroom, and beatings in the hall.

And of course the teachers seemed to miss it all.

Then I found weed; A good friend indeed.

My usage became known; trouble at home.

My grades declined. But I was not alone;

More trouble at home.

Around 15 I found LSD and the world opened up to me.

It gave me insight, and I felt I had grown; more trouble at home.

Stepdad said I was stupid. I just liked being in trouble.

My life would always be a pile of rubble.

He called me Numb-nuts for a year.

I had no way to stop it so I just lived in fear.

At 16 I met the love of my life. She was 28. When I

Realized she’d left with my son, I knew pain was my fate.

Then at 18, there was trouble with the law; more trouble at home.

I got 5 years of probation and to Vermont I was thrown.

My real dad was there and I thought, “oh boy,”

A real father and maybe some joy.

But that abuse reared its ugly head again,

And I wondered if the misuse had just always been.

I moved out and thought “oh good a new start”.

But two divorces later and codeine was my heart.

I remember lying to doctors, searching and aching, and that feeling of finally it’s here.

Do some right now or it might disappear.

Oh, that feeling of numbness and no pain, that antidepressant euphoric state.

I hid there. I lived there. It had become my mate.

I hid if well. Nobody knew,

Except the dealers and the chosen few.

It lasted for 10 long, painful, and arduous years.

Finally I met someone who could dismiss my fears.

Someone who could ease my pain. Someone who

Could get through to my stoned addled brain.

I met my beautiful loving helpmate; my wife.

She was the sweet wonderful woman that saved my life.

It took her a year and then that was it.

There was no choice. She just said quit.

I had finally found something I loved more than my high.

She weaned me off slowly until the day I was dry.

We lived in bliss, nine children in the mix.

There were really good times and nothing to fix.

Then trouble with the law and it all came apart.

They even locked up my wife the other half of my heart.

Our lives had been a wonderful dream.

But things are not always as they seem.

I had learned from Buddhism to suffer in bliss.

Even with all the people I would miss.

Buddhism had become my light,

So I knew everything would be alright.

The good comes with the bad.

Some forget the good and just stay sad

They forget that nothing remains the same.

They live sadness and their badge is pain.

It may sound cliché or lame.

But as for me, I’ll keep my joy.

There may be reasons to complain.

As for me I’ll retain that innocent little boy.