Two Addicts in the Rain
By James Diaz
And he leaned there awhile against the downtown church wall
Though it was a late fall rain
Though the fingers holding court with ash run so cold
He listens to me ramble on with my god hate, small talk to addicts
Big table stuff for anyone else
It's not anything he could say that would make the difference
It's just that he's there with me
In the light cold rain
Hears me out
Pats me on the shoulder
Says: "I hear ya brother"
It is in those very small
Ordinary moments
We are closest to something
So close we have to back away from it
God, not each other
And we stand there a while in a light pain-in-the-ass rain
Dosing out the pain
Two imperfects longing to shed skin
Run road, hop fences,
But doing this instead
We turn our faces into the street lights
As if clarity comes from above and not within and between us
Whatever god is or isn't, I no longer care
But that there is someone there, you know -
There is someone there
When you for so long thought there wouldn't be.
Our church is open air
And it's all right there
Though maybe nothing ever really is
And you cannot keep a hold of any of it
But that when you think of falling through some old hole inside yourself
You remember it all goes this:
Not knowing, street light glowing
Someone says to someone
"I hear you"
And how about that?
Someone says to someone.
Listen
By James Diaz
Let whatever is there, in
Let it be proof enough
I have seen what follows the long nights of holding on
I have been bitten by a grace that is not mine
There have been times I knew much less than this
Kicked to die as I once kicked to be born
But, listen
Someone is out there laid out on the floor as you are tonight
On the other side of the mountain
A Rebecca or a Cody
Twisting their fingers on the long drag of it
Thinking they're alone in it, too
The wind hits them right where it hurts
Oh hurting wind, Bastard mountain
Blind big dumb heart
Listen
Something is kicking out there in the woods
Trying to get born through all that death
I might should tell you as much without a poem
No words, maybe
Just a being there
What it is when you can't see the other end of it
Hand reached up right outta nowhere
Teeth of mercy, I'm tellin ya
There have been days I knew much less than what I felt
And I felt undone
Walked in it a while
It became something else
Became this right here
Blind big dumb aching poem
Listen
You're not alone
Drop That Dark and Board This Ark
By James Diaz
Or bring it with you
There's room for gloom here,
we add up still to every wound
Plus a couple hundred nights of
Small breaths, small breaths
Come on now, let that thing be
Or feel its teeth if you have to
You have to
Until you don't
And then you do again
On and on, you arrive
Right on time
Then you miss your stop
Stop
Look at all this world in you
Feel that hunger in your aching belly
Everywhere the night thickening
So deep and no sleep
Everyone
Trying so hard to play their pain cool
I am that fool
Who loves the world too much sometimes
And burns the house down
trying to prove to myself
I ain't never known a day of joy
I am that fool
Small breaths, small breaths
Bring it with you
Do what you have to
To get where you need to be
Hook or crook
Now look at the wild human heart
dancing its ass off inside you
How far you've come
How far? Tell me how far
Maybe you don't got this
And maybe you do
There's a clue in still being here
Despite all those days you didn't want to
There's a goddamn joy in you
You beautiful fool
Bring it with you.
Bring it all with you.
James Diaz (They/Them) is the founding editor of the literary arts intentional community Anti-Heroin Chic, as well as the author of three full length poetry collections; This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021) and Motel Prayers (Alien Buddha, 2022). Originally a southern native, they currently call upstate New York home.
Artwork Source: “In the Clouds,” The Turning Leaf Journal.
The Turning Leaf Journal 