Day 83 Night - The Four Crack Quartets: Remembering What I Did To Myself And Why I Must Walk With Dignity Today

I understand how tough these last few entries have been and how they hurt the ones I love because they worry about me and they feel helpless. I am sorry to be the source of more suffering. You must understand that I am doing this for a reason. I am not a poor soul who lost the genetic cancer lottery and was told by a doctor that there is a malignant tumor in my liver. I did this to myself, and I must take responsibility.

There will be no pictures in this blog except the one picture of me taken a few years ago in Mexico. The casual leaning on the tongue lashing my ass kind of fits the bill. It shows the remnants of the poser and the ultimately cool Hollywood guy that will always be lurking somewhere in me.

John Lavitt Posing with Graffiti in Ensenada, Mexico in 2007

Below are four poems I wrote in 1994 when I gave in to cheap desire and became a crack addict. As you know from past entries, it was one of the ugliest times in my life. And it truly frightens me when I realize that it took close to another decade for me to hit bottom and finally get sober. All that time with brief stopping points and geographical escapes, I was an unforgivable addict. First crack, then cocaine and heroin. Always smoking except the one time that I shared a needle and was infected with the Hepatitis C virus. It sound like extraordinary bad luck, but it seems appropriate to me that such actions result in such consequences.

I have placed the four poems under a single heading in somewhat twisted homage to T. S. Eliot and his celebration of wastelands and alienated losers. After all, the names of Eliot's first two quartets are Burnt Norton and East Coker. It seemed to make sense in a strange sort of way since the themes of the first two poems of the series are described by C. K. Stead as...


1. The movement of time, in which brief moments of eternity are caught.
2. Worldly experience, leading on to dissatisfaction.
3. Purgation in the world, divesting the soul of the love of created things.

Such themes when mutilated surely reflect the horror as expressed below...

           

the four crack quartets

how accurate

long walk in darkness and silence,

a deafening cry pounding inside,

flooding the chambers, cheap desire,

so much freedom given away so soon,

mutilated on her altar, unrecognized,

rotting, and i almost gave my life

away, almost sacrificed my life

for smoke, my life for smoke.

can barely remember how it began;

when bitterness rose like vapor,

expanding into a cynical answer.

how quickly it filled my life,

how little there was to fill.

i'm not scared of these sentences.

today is not trembling with fear.

is tomorrow a burnt offering?

we expose horror in routine.

through routine the smoke

rises, habits rising night to night

until vergil and the dark descent

is no longer a poet's metaphor.

i pass him by, taking no notice,

noticing now only and forever

how cold and damp my palms,

how accurate the shaking.

more

this is amazing!

i am killing myself

with each rising breath

of bitterness, sweet

bitter smoke rising.

it has stolen me flat.

it creeps and lies readily

and more often in night

amid the slow emptiness,

slowly demanding more

the dive into a wave of death,

youth cruising on the crest

of a wave breaking, breaking

into my soul and the good life

sinks, drowning in ashes

dark magic, deluded, blinded,

the journey down and deeper

into buried lies, obscured

by the smoke and she calls

and i come and i abandon

all whys to the wanting,

i fall, solitary liar falling,

without fighting, bereft

of doubt, ignoring all fear:

this is just a passing fancy,

a consumer on the edge

of hell, american hell perfect

where the soul shrivels black,

the crack they sell extracts

wanting, wanting always more.

away

i have seen what the smoke

can destroy, almost without warning;

how readily i ignore the danger,

tossing the worst outcome aside

even when the worst is sure to arrive.

the real cost multiplied: pound of lung

and the disfigurement of pride.

ask and you shall see what lies:

all the smart reasons why i won't die,

why i'll never sink with the suicides;

because this, this is a crazy adventure,

a youthful romp down the road to hell

where hope withers, love impaled

on the wanting, cheap and ready.

the smoke; ready with the answer

to a question asked so carelessly.

my god, i gave your gifts away,

sacrificed more than good, more than evil,

more than the first taste from the tree –

hell - i murdered the first possibility.

all my potential reduced to residue,

ambition drowning in wet hollow sighs

as the fire god ignites an empty life

and i forget why i needed to escape,

forget the notion of escape, my life

so readily replaced by smoke slipping

into glassy eyes, engulfing all dignity

as the dream shrivels and friends die.

really o.k.

even rain falling

falls into the delusion

of rock, thin wet flakes

lurking under my tongue

in reflections of tin foil

i watch the very best lies

gently rise into smoke,

rising past all potential.

cold fingers rattle now,

waiting forever for one more

taste of sweet heaven-scent,

sinking swiftly into more

waiting, struggle to remain

a little more high and i

will be fine, i'm really o.k.

if there's one more hit,

but stillness never comes,

only the desperate maintenance

of purgatory, soon exhausted,

shivering into morning light.

Day 21 Night - A Relapse Dream, Freedom and a Questionable High Five

Sorry for three days of silence. Everything has been fine. Even better than fine with some actual good news. Sometimes I feel burdened by the words. There is so much I wish to express, so much of my experience and the cavalcade of thoughts and feelings, and I become lost like a virgin shopper in a cavernous department store, wondering which aisle to wander down next and where might the exit be. I will do my best to be easier on myself, more gentle and loving, and not so damaging and foolish amid this whirlwind of expectation and fear.

Okay, so I just woke up from the worse relapse dream I have had in years, and it was all about smoking cocaine and crack out of glass pipes, scraping the residue and scouring a wooden floor like a rabid maid for a dropped piece. In a most pathetic battle, I was fighting over the next hit with a friend turned devilish competitor. How disgusting and truly awful it was, and how grateful I am for the freedom of my sobriety. I was a slave. Let's not mince words, and I mean no disrespect to the historical legacy of slavery or the actual victims of the present day. But I was a slave to my addiction and it turned me into a monstrous creature, and I am so grateful to be free of those chains. Yes, this health crisis is a challenge, but it is a challenge that I face with the dignity and the grace and the fear and the wonder of my own authenticity. Not some grubby and pathetic crackhead willing to sacrifice anything for the next hit, but John in the seat of his own actuality, present for each challenge and ready to face whatever difficulties are to come. Sobriety and the gift of recovery has given me the blessing of being the captain of my own ship. Yes, this ocean is the provenance of God and I know who ultimately is in charge of the tide, but I take a deep breath, ready and willing to face the next wave with a smile.

With Big Waves Rolling In, The Confidence of Being Your Own Captain

Mind you, the next wave that was rolling in with the easy vengeance of a Tsunami when I fall into my drama queen mode were the CAT Scan results of my right kidney and the identity of the 1.7 cm by 2 cm lesion that the Ultrasound found lingering like an unwanted visitor. Most likely it was just an angiomyolipoma, the most common benign tumor of the kidney that is composed of blood vessels, smooth muscle cells and fat cells, but there was an outside chance that it could be kidney cancer.

When I told the doctor at the clinical trials about the angiomyolipoma, he said we had to wait for the results of the CAT scan before they could admit me into the trials. However, he commented that if it was a cancerous tumor, it was a total slam dunk and I was truly lucky that they had found it at such an early stage when it could easily be extracted without the loss of my kidney. He quite literally offered me a high-five. In response, I shook my head and told him there was no way I was going to give him a high-five to celebrate the possible existence of a cancerous tumor in my right kidney, no matter how lucky that discovery might be in medical terms. This was a questionable high-five at best and clearly shows why the man became a research doctor and not a priest or a teacher or a shrink. I mean, dude, no matter what, I am never going to high-five anyone in regards to cancer.

Agreed: High Fives Reserved for Epic Moments of Wonder

Now the good news, not high fiveable (love inventing words that just seem to be needed at certain times), but quite a relief. Over the weekend, I received a letter from my Kaiser doctor, informing me that the lesion found in my kidney was indeed a benign angiomyolipoma and in need of no further treatment. If it grows out of control and continues to get bigger, that's a whole different story, but for now, it is fine and quite common and living a happy life in the suburbs of my body.

More importantly, let's deal with one major organ at a time, focusing on my liver and getting rid of the Hepatitis C. Now I can move forward with the clinical trials, although it's going to take a few weeks to get off the ground. Convincing two hospitals to communicate with each other (Kaiser and Olympia) is kinda like beholding negotiations between rhinoceros and a hippopotamus. The Rhino jostles its horn, the Hippo opens a gaping mouth and not all that much actually gets accomplished. Ultimately, everything will get done and I will continue to move forward with the provess.

Not the Easiest of Negotiations Between Hospitals - C'est La Vie!

Please forgive the multitude of pictures, but it's hard to pass up a good shot that illustrates a point I am trying to make and brings a smile to my face. This is a beautiful life, my friends, and it's sad that it often takes crisis to make us realize what we have been missing and what we truly should be grateful for. When I use the collective "we" I actually am referring to myself, but I enjoy universalizing my sentiments in a belief that they are reflective of us all. And why would anyone not want to be included in such a sentiment and in the quiet realization that beyond a society that constantly barrages us with a plague of unnecessary wants, we have everything we actually need in the palm of our souls.