Prayer To the Stone of Sobriety

Prayer to the Stone of Sobriety Under a purple flannel-like sheet, but not as soft; As warm as flannel-but hotter, I am sweating. The flannel shroud soaks up my sweat like my liver soaks up venom I see angry tigers approaching from the ceiling above where I lay; Tigers coming to rip the walls of my mortal gut. Oh, Bacchus, send your vengeful tigers away What did I ever do to you? The sheet protects me from sunlight, but not from myself; Nor am I shielded from Bacchus’ tigers; and not from my sweat. Beads of toxic perspiration roll across swollen eyelids. I press my cracked lips firmly together as if to scream silently to scare the tigers. A poison tiger in my body torments my heart, Pressing its scabbed paw firmly against my veins Each pulse of the baneful blood pushes against my forehead as the tiger roars And Bacchus begins to laugh. Oh, wine, Oh drink, Oh smoke and pill Who put you in my shriveled stomach? Who breathed you into my cancerous lung? What did I ever do to you? A heave of tepid vomit snaps like a leather whip through my throat! Tigers hate the taste of vomit. Bacchus’ hatred is repulsed by its smell. The tigers stop with one last press upon my forehead. The sweat-soaked purple cloth is flung back from my shaking body by an unknown woman. The wet pile of purple sheet crystallizes on the corner of my pyre. It solidifies, as does my resolve, to keep Bacchus and the tigers at bay. The mound of purple quartz is tethered to my body by a cord of desperation. Oh wine, Oh drink. You too, smoke and pill, The blue of hope and red of blood join forces to guard me from your tiger claws. My sobriety hangs in the balance. It hangs around my neck like a stone That has the weight of three large hogs. It hangs around my neck like a young woman, not yet a noose. Like the woman who was commissioned by ancient Greeks to keep me sober. Oh, sober Amethyst Like ancient Bacchus, I cry Tears of sweat over my drunkenness Ashamed enough to die; but I cannot Your generous gift of recovery is free. What did I ever do to deserve your sober generosity? Be my stone of sobriety; You are my receptacle of thought and habit. Heal me, oh purple goddess. Protect this mortal from my internal tigress Guard me with the weight of purple stone. Oh, stone of sobriety, heal this mortal fool.