A Loss Leading to Addiction

I see you as clear as day. 

So clear I think I can touch you. 

I remember everything about you,

Every little memory with you.

I see you out of the corner of my eye.

Your presence makes me smile big.

I hear you squeak out for me,

Making me want to hold you.

Just that thought alone reminded me how you felt.

Softest fur to ever feel.

I see the happy memories where I would sing to you,

And you would sing back.

I see the bad memories where you had to comfort me,

So that I didn’t hurt myself.

I could have killed myself many times,

But you were there.

I see the sad memories where I was overdosing,

You, staying curled into me while I went through withdrawals.

Comforting me with your purr.

I see our memories together all the time.

Hurting me every single time

With the thought I’ll never see you again.

The thought I have to keep living without you.

This is where the memories start to hurt.

That’s where the good memories cause a relapse.

I don’t see or hear you when I’m sober.

But when I’m drunk?

Oh God, don’t let me lose you again.

I can see glimpses of you again. 

See you from around the corner,

See you rub against my leg.

I can hear you again.

Your tiny squeaks,

Your barely audible meow.

Seeing you again really makes me think,

Why should I?

Why should I stop drinking?

I got you back by doing this,

Why should I stop?

I don’t want to lose you again.

The memories hurt too much,

So just stay with me.

Author's Note

This was for a contest on a different site. The Prompt was 'memories.' I've never done something like this before so this was probably the quickest thing I'd ever written by far.

Reviews

[JayG]

• I see you as clear as day.
So clear I think I can touch you.
I remember everything about you,
Every little memory with you.


You do? Funny, I can’t remember you.

My point? You, someone unknown, are talking to someone not introduced, about unspecified events. What’s in it for the reader? Where's the context? Why would they want to know more if you’ve given them no context to make the words meaningful to them?

For you, this works perfectly, because you’re talking AT someone whose image is already in your head, about events with a deep emotional connection to you. So that provides context. And as you read, the voice you hear is your voice, all filled with emotions that the events, and situation generated.

More than that, you begin reading already knowing what the words WILL say. And because you edit from the seat of the author, not the reader, it will always work. But for the reader who has none of that, it can’t work. In fact, since they have been given no reason to WANT to know more, why will they continue?

You say you stopped writing for a time. It’s common. For most people, that happens because they go back to something they wrote a month or more ago and decide that for unknown reasons it doesn’t have the life it had when they wrote it. If that happened to you, it’s because a month later memories have faded, and you begin to read more as a reader than the author, and see the result of writing with the “Let me explain” approach we learn in school, as they train us in the nonfiction writing skills that employers need from us. But not knowing that there is another approach, we can see that there is a problem, but cannot see the cause till it’s pointed out.

So it’s not a matter of how well you write, talent, or anything about you. And it can be fixed by digging into the skills of the field—learning the skills the pros take for granted.

We forget that professional knowledge and technique are acquired in addition to our school-day skills—and that they aren’t optional.

The skills of poetry and fiction are no harder to learn than were the nonfiction skills we own. Perfecting them isn’t easy, of course, but what profession is? And learning something you want to do is never hard labor.

I looked at your fiction, and it’s the same, fixable situation. Because of your training, you, the narrator, are alone on stage, talking TO the reader. But, when you read fiction, are you seeking information—a chronicle of events—or do you want the author to make you feel as if you’re living the scene in real-time, as the protagonist?

The emotional goal is what we all seek, of course. But, since readers will learn of everything that’s done before the protagonist does, unless we calibrate the reader’s perception of the scene to that of the protagonist, they will react as themselves, not the protagonist. So to BECOME the protagonist the reader must know the scene as the protagonist does in every meaningful detail. Not be told what can be seen; not view the scene as you view it; but know what matters to the protagonist, and why it matters, in the moment that the character calls, “now.”

So, to make those missing skills yours, some suggestions:
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Poetry:
Download Mary Oliver’s, A Poetry Handbook, here:
https://yes-pdf.com/book/1596

Next, read the excerpt to Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled, on Amazon. And, drop in on the Shoop site, Select Student, and then use the midpage pushbutton to select Poetry. There are many great poems there, analyzed to show why and how they worked.

Fiction:
Personally? I’d suggest starting with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found, to date, at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others
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I know this isn’t what you expected or hoped for. But since we’ll not address the problems we don’t see as being one, and we all have the same problems when we turn to writing, I thought you might want to know.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

AMAzing free verse I love it
Beautiful
I had a cat once
This is a very deep poem I’m not sure I understand the meaning but I definitely love it