SOME OF US FACE LIFE STRAIGHT
we don’t smoke dope, take heroin,
or any other drug or substance that
alters consciousness.
although we enjoy a beer once in
a while, we are not drinkers and not
into getting drunk for fun.
no doubt we’re missing out on something,
seriously. truly.
but some of us will have to face life straight,
sober. with our own minds, with clear thoughts,
or thoughts that strive to be clear.
it has to do with where we come from.
some of us have parents who went through hell,
who worked shitty jobs, who never had enough
money for a house, not even a small one, or
for a new car, or even for a new suit.
some of us have come from a very difficult life,
a difficult childhood. some of us barely made
it out alive.
some of us, somehow, with some luck and
hard work, and with no money whatsoever,
got ourselves educated.
and we struggle, till this day.
the past haunts us.
yes, we made it out, but not without scars,
not without trauma deeply embedded in our
psyches and souls.
but this has been our blessing as much as
our curse.
it is this past that has made us more compassionate,
more perceptive, more generous, wiser, less tolerant
of bullshit, cruelty, injustices of all kinds.
especially to the poor or downtrodden or different.
or to those who can’t protect themselves.
because we’ve been there and in so many ways
have never left.
so, yes, we face life straight because it’s
the only way we know how.
because life is too serious to fuck around
and waste time.
we have our work.
very often without financial recompense.
we have our work
which is to tell the others who have suffered
like us and worse, much worse, that there
is a way up and out.
there is an open window, an open door.
and if they, we, stay alert, not drugged, not
distorted, not duped or doped, we actually
have a chance to find it.