TEN YEARS LATER by Joel Landmine
But I thought of Raymond Carver / How in his tenth year sober / he found gratitude / in the face of death
Good morning. We are back again with another incredible poem, one of three featured in the latest issue of Be About It zine by Joel Landmine. You can get yourself a copy of the zine here while supplies last (there is only one copy left until I do a reprint!).
TEN YEARS LATER
The damp last-ditch drug program by the sea with its sagging ceilings
and the black mold on the walls
Grown men in their thirties and forties constantly
bitching and bickering
acting like hard men
but sounding like
school children in need of a nap because nobody
had ever showed them how
to act right
more a flophouse
than a treatment center
I’d been there for 30 days
and was finally allowed to leave by myself unsupervised
I went downtown
and bought two bottles of Nyquil and went to a movie theater
to watch a movie
about Russian gangsters
I sat in the darkened theater and drank both bottles
as though they were shots
I figured I’d get a little buzz on and watch my movie
and go back there
without stinking of booze without anyone being the wiser
For once
everything went as planned
It was the last drink I ever had
***
Ten years later
on the same night
I feared for my home
they were selling my building
and my wife and I couldn’t afford to move I hated my job
wasn't sure I could do it
and it was really important that I do it
I was swamped and I needed the check
Someone dented my car
I found an abscess in my mouth
Much of the country was on fire or underwater as people I loved
came to celebrate this milestone
We went to my favorite place
They got me chicken and greens and iced tea
85
The waitress
20 years past her prime with a mouthful of gold blew us all away
with the most soulful rendition of Happy Birthday any of us had ever heard
I was moved
wondered to myself why she wasn't famous why she was a waffle waitress and not a singer until she hugged me
and I smelled the Malibu on her breath
and I understood
and I fleetingly thought
about how if things
had gone the other way
for me probably nobody would even let me serve waffles
Despite the love
despite all the triumphs
I felt sad and somehow defeated
I was nearing the end of the second week of intense depression
on the heels of a year
of slightly less intense depression
But I thought of Raymond Carver
How in his tenth year sober
he found gratitude
in the face of death
And I listened to the new Jay-Z
and marveled at how even a person with everything can grow and grow and grow
And how Biggie didn't have that chance
and everything he could have given us all
And I put on the movie about the Russian gangsters and wrote this down