On Waking Up (or not) To Fact and Fiction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I will be 76 later this year and was very saddened, only recently, to hear that the grandson of an old school friend had died of a drugs overdose; he was just 23 years-old and had been an addict since his mid-teens. His younger brother had also experimented with drugs, but not to the same extent and a period in rehab saved him from becoming permanently addicted; he even went on to achieve a university degree, and is now happily settled with his partner and  a job he loves. 

I guess wanting to be free of any addiction is not enough, it has to be fuelled by a sense of purpose. 

Years ago, I asked a former drug addict what, for him, had been the attraction of drugs. I expected him to say for the thrill of it. Instead, he answered with one word, “Escapism.” I understood the principle only too well, having been an avid reader of fiction since early childhood by way of escaping from certain realities with which, for the life of me, I couldn’t get to grips, including aspects of myself that I didn’t have the experience to understand and made me feel uncomfortable; during my formative years, these included an undiagnosed hearing loss and untreated speech defect. Later, I would have to deal with being gay, a fact from which family and society attitudes in those days compelled me to run away for nearly twenty years. 

A brief stay in Australia in the late 1960’s was a form of escapism. I felt guilty and cowardly until I met an old aboriginal man with whom I shared confidences I had bottled up for years. “There is no shame in running away,” he told me, “Sometimes we need to run away to find out just what it is we’re running away from. Only then can we decide to tackle it head-on or keep running. Waste of a life, running away. It can only ever end in tears... or worse, much worse...” he added thoughtfully. 

Indeed, it can, and I owe that man my life because I was offered drugs only a few days later, by which time I was able to refuse, having made up my mind to clear up the mess I’d made of my life so far, and stop running. A week earlier, I may well have been desperate enough to choose one of the worst forms of escapism, not uncommon among those of us made to feel but ‘losers’ by personal circumstances that, as likely as not, would see us fail to rise above its growing pains. 

ON WAKING UP (OR NOT) TO FACT AND FICTION 

Bright and sunny my days
in the park where once I loved to play
among peers of yesteryear,
relieved just to put any worries on hold,
leave reality behind awhile,
relaxed and happy in the company
of friends, left to explore
brave new worlds of such inspired imagination
as lent us a temporary freedom 

Dark clouds threatening rain
would send us running hell for leather
to find any shelter on hand,
still concerned with keeping reality at bay
a growing anxiety taking hold
of a mind-body-spirit, too easily tempted
by mixed growing pains
to explore the potential of other makeshift worlds
by way of latch-key passwords 

The passage of time grown dark
and scary, the only sure relief on hand
at the prick of a needle,
lending me all the thrills of such yesteryears
as would have had me access
a kinder world than ill-met by sunny days
offering a temporary freedom
from stormy weather, mind-body-spirit left to fight
that incorrigible demon, hindsight 

Alone in the park where once I so loved playing,
just another druggie, no happy ending 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

[Note: This post-poem also appears on my general poetry blog today.] RNT