Author Archives: bennyk1972

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25 Years Sober Today

April 1st 1991. This was day one

I had to go back to the beginning and start all over again.  I had to go back to the place where it all began. I was only six months out of treatment.  I was six months away from the lessons I learned and six months away friends that were more like “Family” to me. Soon enough, however, I found myself back in trouble.
It was as if I never left.

Worst of all, I traded the one thing I had. I traded something so priceless and important. I traded my value and my dignity. I traded the work and the time I put into my sobriety. I gave away the one thing, which in my eyes redeemed me from the previous wrongs and my past sins.
However, this was not a surprise. Not at all. My Continue reading →

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Here on Project Earth

Evening Rush Hour:

I sat in a window seat on Short-Line bus out of New York City’s Port Authority Bus Station. Slowly, one by one, passengers boarded the bus.
Some were headed home after a long day’s work. Others were homeward bound after a playful day in the city.
Each passenger that climbed aboard, either male or female, scanned the possible seating arrangements on the bus. Each one climbed up the steps and began to make their way down the aisle between the two, side by side seats.
The choice of seating is either an aisle or window seat. As for me, I prefer the window. I enjoy watching the city lights disappear into distance. I like watching the changes in landscape from city to suburb. The sky above Continue reading →

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The War on Drugs

 

I read a headline that said the President was going to address the drug epidemic. After years of sobriety and the experience of my own struggle, when it comes to the subject of addiction, there are two kinds of people in this world. There are those that understand and those that will never understand. The line between the two is definite and clear.

Keep in mind, the addict is not specific. There are different types of addicts, which vary, depending upon the drug of choice or method of consumption. The world of addiction is made up of all sorts. It is not limited to race, creed, or sexual orientation. Drug addiction does not discriminate. Whether the Continue reading →

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Insomnia Poetry

I call this venting in different verses

1)

I am more impressed with your fascination
of what I already knew
than the lessons you try to teach me

I feel this shows a real version of who you are

And yet . . . here you are
Preaching to the choir to hear yourself speak,
and not once have you shared your thoughts
on how life has graced you,
one minute at a time.

You pulled a trick, though.
I’ll admit it.
The Continue reading →

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Easter Morning 2016

Sometimes I field questions about my faith. There are certainly points out there which make me question what my believe heart believes to be true. There are times when the mind overwhelms the heart. I lose my sight. And by sight, I do not mean that I cannot see. I can see all too clearly, which is distracting, because I misread and miscalculate the information around me.

I have mentioned to you before Continue reading →

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Intended for Spoken Word

Nighttime:

Set up deep in the indigo sky, a bright three-quarter moon spilled light across the field beside my home. I stood looking upwards at the twinkling stars, shimmering high and far, far away from the complications of man or anything manmade.
My day is behind me and the night is ahead. Manhattan is 40 miles away. All the city light, streetlamps and stoplights are to my southeast. The sounds, the sights, the noise and congestion is far enough away that I can disconnect myself and regain a semblance of peace. Looking upwards, I consider the meaning of Heaven and my life as it is, here, on Earth below.

Standing beside a softly dim yellow light that beams down across my driveway, I look out at the mountains behind my home. The dark outlines of the mountaintops act like a line that run across a graph chart. Aside from the wind swooping through empty tree branches, which will soon begin to leaf again, the sound around me is quiet. Continue reading →

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From The Book of Firsts: The Italian House

I learned a long time ago that different cultures decorate their homes in different ways. And it’s important to respect these differences. . .

I knew a girl that used to have to walk down the back steps inside her colonial style home. She was told by her stepmother that the front steps by the entryway were for adults only.
I knew people that had furniture in their home that were for adults only. There were no kids allowed on the living room couches.

I knew some families that had their couches covered in plastic. In addition to the plastic couches, some families had plastic Continue reading →

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A Night Near 23rd Street

I sat in a small room with a nurse and a man standing in front of me with a white jacket and a stethoscope around his neck. The office was like any office inside a hospital or institution. There was a desk in the middle of the room. There was a machine that takes blood pressure. There were small cardboard boxes with tongue depressors, plastic guards for the metal thermometer they stick in your mouth, and a box with rubber surgical gloves.
Overhead, the fluorescent lights hummed in the Continue reading →

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Kids Say The Damnedest Things

It was one of the last times I went down to see my mother. She was so old. She was bent forward—her hazel eyes sort of glazed with a film that comes with old age. Her reddish hair was losing its battle to a bad dye job and her memory was becoming worse. Her outfits were limited. She missed wearing nice shoes and nicer clothing.

I remember driving from Ft. pierce to down to Pompano Beach Florida. I took the last of my mother’s belongings and snuck them from the assisted living home where angry nurses yelled at elderly, defenseless and debilitated patients. My mother was terrified of that place. I suppose when I arrived, she felt protected. And when I made myself know, I suppose my mother felt rescued.

When I spoke Continue reading →

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A Place In the Heart

I often find myself thinking about this hill I once knew. A long field of tall, wheat colored grass ran alongside the clearing where a tree, medium in height with a thick trunk, stood without any leaves on its oddly winding branches. There is not much around this place. There are no streets with homes or man-made structures of any kind. It is secluded here, which is why I imagine this place so often. And when I imagine this place, I imagine myself there alone with you.

I picture a Continue reading →