Conversations Among the Ruins

I spin my venti
paper starbucks cup
around with my left

hand - checking
the internet on
my phone, which
in all of it's

vastness, can really
say

nothing

a lot.

A group of
fifteen bikers
with their young
kids and wives

take up much
of the front
of the store.

I'm not nervous I'm
just

excited. Within a
few minutes she
comes into the door.

Tall, glasses, with
blonde hair and a
smile she is

my home so much
of the time.

My eyes fill
with tears that I
try to cover up as

she gets in line to
get a coffee after
we hug.

A man asks if he can sit
at our table because there
isn't anywhere else

to go. "Of course."
I say.

When she comes back
she is taken aback
at the man sitting

at the table. She says
nothing though as we
start a conversation.

The man kept to himself.
I wanted to turn to him
and say

"Hi. I am the birth mother
to this woman's daughter.

She was the only person
that sat with me
while I was in labor

ten years ago. That's
pretty fucking amazing,
isn't it?"

So often we miss
the miracles

all around us just
for me that wasn't

this morning. You know as
an addict I have the same
outrageous story

of losing myself as
millions of others.

Oh, the grandiosity and
glamour of fucking up
as a mortal on Earth, how

captivating - I'd have a
trend stream on twitter in
place of a blood stream - cutting

plastic holes into
my face that look sexy
behind a blurry lens.

I will never
be anything
if the story is told

about the parts of my
shadow I hand select.

"I cannot write
the book and tell
the story because

the story is about
the light. It is of
the light and I

am not all the way
there yet. I am in
the infancy

of my wellness and this
speaks in volumes for
what is to

follow. "I believe
Carrie and you
are the only

person that has seen it
clearly. In this whole world

just you... my
other mother."

I drove home up
the 215 in the sun,

smiling at how
someday I

will have the most
astronomically
best selling novel

of all time - and the
best part, the first

page, in italics just
the words

for carrie

I wonder sometimes
who reads this. The opinions
formed by the people

that I don't know as
a result, or that
only know me in passing -

modern style like from
my facebook pictures
because you know somebody

that knew me once. Or you
knew me once.

I pretend often that I'm
writing to everybody and
that everybody is really

just a figment of my
imagination and possibly
just an idea in my head -

The audience
no longer exists and
I'm not sure

if that's the order

of if that's

the

chaos.