These words look so pretty when pinned to the page like this .. and the message they make up, has that for real flavour to it .. its never easy tho to quit or get clean tho’ is it .. Bravo for sharing these insights .. just keep taking it one day at a time and write on .. Neville

I spotted the songs hidden within. Yeah, I’ve been lucky being I never participated in alcohol or drugs. They were everywhere but I declined and I’m glad for it.

You’re a courageous guy for being able to go through that and come out sane. (and a great writer). I’ve known people who couldn’t do it and spiraled into oblivion. Good on you, Damian.

Powerful work.

You’re a marvelous writer Damian. This is well written and quite honest. Great work!

Thanks so much for reading and your kind words, Mary. So glad you connected with the write my friend. It is a reward to get second chance, but it was important for me to understand why and how I became so addicted in the first place. I understand me better now, I’ve even slowly started to like myself a little. lol. That’s my true transformation my friend. Appreciate you.

Damian

My best friend from middle school has been sober for over 17 years. I’m so proud of her.
It took her pound of flesh though. Completely different person when drunk. Mean, violent, and in all honesty sometimes sad.
No one wakes up in the morning and says I want to be an alcoholic. The struggle was real and I am so thankful she got sober.
Hang in there and tell the voices to shut the hell up. You got this. One day at a time.

Superb. You nailed it, my friend.

Hauntingly raw and beautifully concise — each line cuts deep with emotional clarity and poetic rhythm. Appreciate you, Damian.

I’ve always felt that if you’re still going…even limping…you’re not broken. You’re fractured. Those fractures heal with aches same as breaks, we both know that. You are fierce in your approach to truth, my friend

When it comes to the heart matters it is always difficult, very difficult to separate the feelings from the mind and make sense of everything… Unfortunately, sometimes we learn in the hard and painful way, and sometimes we need years to completely get over it and grow, the pain is real here, well written my friend.

Powerful work. I felt this to the core of me.

This is a very beautiful work, my friend. I love your, “unruly midnight moon,” and there are so many other lines that touched me deeply; if I tried to mention them here I might as well write every line.

Someone told me that to describe the feelings within shadow was a testament to writing good poetry. I don’t know about that, but I admit, I love this poem, the flow of it, and that you saw and felt it is warmly appreciated. I knew an artist friend who drew scenes in pencil. She had one piece, a landscape, done in black pencil that I swear when you looked at it deeply, you could see blue streaks flow in it. Some of that experience of seeing this piece of art is what I tried to capture in this poem and where that line: “…kaleidoscope of greys” came from.

Mary, thank you, your visits and comments mean a lot to me.

FlatDaddy, it thrills me that you were touched by this poem. You might be surprised to know that unruly moon gets really rambunctious at midnight. Then again, we are the same age, so you probably know all about unruly moons. At any rate I truly welcome your visit and thanks for a great comment (and message).

Yeah, that calm was not calm at all. The aftermath was. Terrible

I love Kurt, I love him not because of his music, because of the man he is, the human he is, the soul he is. and no he didn’t kill himself, I’m one of those who believes it, have to say this. On the other hand I don’t like Dali lol but I surely can see how Nirvana’s music paints Dali’s mind. I’m glad I read this this morning, thank You my friend 💕 might be sending you some older poem after reading this.