Rehab Stories: Remember Who You Are. When I reach The number three You will Awaken You will not Remember The dream You will Remember Who you are

Transcription

1 Rehab Stories: Remember Who You Are When I reach The number three You will Awaken You will not Remember The dream You will Remember Who you are Are you ready? Good One Two Three Ignition Contact You are floating In the atmosphere You are solitary But you are not alone Do you remember This feeling? This feeling is love Open, honest and free Accepting Without condition Or fear This feeling is you Hold it Guard it Keep it safe This is who you are I am going to count back From the number three When I reach The number one You will open Your eyes You will be back In the struggle

2 Back in the dream You will remember Who you are Three Two One Rehab Stories: Leonard Cohen Always Makes Me Cry I touched the brittle charm Of your exquisite heartbreak On melancholy winter nights Diffusive and forsaken The chewed gravel of your arguments Lachrymose with volatility Calling fidelity to my nature Of the mosaic simplicity of ardor You always were my siren song To which, contentedly I longed to splay my gore Gratefully, on your promontory Rehab Stories: Teilhard Kids made fun of Teilhard For his unusual name Because that was all they could find To make fun of Teilhard had it all The face of an angel The mind of a professor The curiosity of a scientist The soul of a poet Teilhard was the kind of boy Who hushed a room to silence When he walked through the door Teilhard was 20 years old And the world was right in front of him

3 His for the taking Teilhard could have been anything Anything he wanted to be Unfortunately What he wanted to be Was a junkie I took Teilhard under my wing Worked with him Showed him that he could be happy That he could still be cool That he could dazzle the girls That you didn t need a dirty needle Full of junk To get through this life Theilhard got his shit together Went back to school Met a girl who adored him Wanted the best for him Was good for him When I threw Teilhard a party To celebrate one year clean You couldn t fit another person in With a crowbar I loved Teilhard like a brother So the day I was told That he had needed to give it one last try That they had found his beautiful body Cold and dead In a filthy back alley With a needle in his arm There was nothing I could do But crumble to my bed Like a broken puppet And cry What a senseless fucking waste You could have been somebody, Teilhard There is so much you could have done You could have changed the world At least somebody s life I didn t know my heart could be this broken I miss you, Teilhard Every

4 Fucking Day Rehab Stories: Distortion My head snaps To attention Out of a dead sleep For a disoriented instant I cannot figure out Where I am Or what I am doing Then the pain hits Like a runaway train With memory dragged Kicking and screaming Right behind I must have passed out When they broke the third finger Maybe shortly before I don t know which is worse The sheer agony Of feeling my bone snap The sharp, nauseating sound it makes Or the pulse of pure, blistering terror That precedes both God, look at what they ve done To my hand It will never be beautiful again Then one of their faces Is mere inches from mine Screaming obscenities That strike me Like a hot punch Where is it?" They want to know Fuck me, I wish I knew I d trade my mother To escape this dungeon With only the damage Already done

5 They fall silent Then the big one reaches over To pin my wrist with one hand Squeeze my fourth finger With the other I cannot hear myself think Over the sound Of my own blubbering As he begins to bend my finger back I can t help but think Maybe you were right after all. Maybe I ve got a problem here."

6 David Rutter David Rutter is a Los Angeles based writer of poetry, fiction and theatre. This year his work has been published in Haggard & Halloo, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Subliminal Interiors, Dressing Room Poetry Journal, Clean Sheets and The Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles. He is not writing a screenplay.