Playing the tape back

"There was a pool full of liquor so I dived in it"

Timid

Nothing's picture perfect

But I tried to create this image

Cropped my face so that it's true state never showed

Altered my pain

Deleted my emotions

This potion (alcohol)

Created confusion,

created this illusion

That it's everyone's fault but mine

Every excuse I could find

I blamed my mother

My brother

My daddy

because, we had issues

Eyes glossy I looked in that mirror pointing at everyone

Except the one staring back

with the conversation of

We need to fix you!

If I could go back and reverse

Speaking the truth even though it hurts

The issues we had because, daddy

my brother, my mother my blame

I was in denial

That it was me who caused the shame

I can't deny suffering in silence

was the biggest challenge

But I had to create a balance

Because closed mouths don't get fed

and blank faces can't be read

Alcohol created a crippling affliction

To be my walking addiction

I was numb to reality

To some a fatality

But to me life was now tolerable

My trauma most labeled as drama

Drowned me

The quick sand I couldn't walk in turned to dirt

I became oblivious to my self love and worth

I was hurting

Self medicating was no longer working

That 110lb bag of bones

Alone

Made me feel and look non existent

Isolation created a dismissive distance

To them I was a drunk

To me I wanted to die

Survival of the fittest

Wasn't fitting

The skin I was in

I was lost not wanting to be found

Just left alone in the darkness

(John 8:12) say "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk

in darkness, but will have the light of life"

So I had to find a power greater than myself

In order to find my purpose

All well worth it

As I was slowly killing me

He was planting seeds in me

Watered by a pool full of liquor I thought I died in

To rebirth a testimony that I was born to tell

Realizing that life doesn't stop when we reach rock bottom

But taking that bottom rock to climb to the top

Yes as people we do suffer

But I am living proof

That we do recover!!!

Poem by: Shaquetta "R.E.I.L" Nelson