What Surprises Me is That I Want to Stop

About * Bookstore * BookTalk * Bulletin Board * Chat Room * Contact * Convenor Blog * Convenors * Cutting Edge * Donate * Email * Expo * FAQs * Food&Bev * Forum * Gallery * Humor * Keepers * Lawyer's LifeRing * LifeRing Partners * LifeRing Press * Links * Media * Meetings * Meeting Starter * Membership Survey * Music * New Book * New Recovery Blog *Nicotine * Philosophy * Poetry * For Professionals * Quotations * Recreation * Science * Social Network * Testimonials * Thank You * Toolbox * Treatment Finder * Website * Welcome

Kudos for LifeRing -- Read the Testimonials Page and Add Your Own

What Surprises Me is That I Want to Stop

What surprises me is that I want to stop
That I keep surfacing, trying to break free
When this false lover is always there
Waiting, like a ghost in a dark hallway
Grinning carelessly, knowing my need

I turn away towards life, towards hopeful smiles,
The lightness of sober dawns, the weightlessness of simply being.
And it whispers to me of greater pleasures, a deeper opening
Singing freely, dancing pure joy, fearless, fearless.

And I turn back to it, knowing it is death and pain
Because it knows me, knows what I need
Some anguish lives in me that it can gently caress away
Some deep thing, an ache of emptiness
If I could embrace that anguish, that emptiness,
Comfort it, name it, gently tell it not to be afraid
Would I be free?

Linda F.

Return to Poetry Index