Remember that moment when you realized you were in real trouble.? Alcoholism, sexual misconduct, larceny, addiction were your best qualities and you had lost all will to keep telling yourself the lies that for so long kept you going. Sitting on the Metro or the Amtrak headed to somewhere you really didn’t want to go because you once again were forced to apologize for dropping the ball or making a fool of yourself or someone who mattered in front of people who would not soon forget. Remember the promises you made and broke repeatedly whether or not they knew, you did and that painful swell in your stomach would not go away.

Remember that day you found out that you weren’t God’ ‘s gift to mankind and in fact you were rather unlikeable even by those people who were inclined to give you a break? Remember how many times you ardently stressed that you had changed and they could count on you to do the right thing, say the right thing, but even you had to admit that you didn’t even know what was right anymore. Remember that self loathing that nearly forced you to continue in these behaviors some how believing that you deserved what you were getting? Remember the few people who finally gave up on you because they were beyond frustration and over hearing the same old line, delivered a different serious tone and emotional passion for too long now? Remember where you went? Remember how that felt? Remember what you did with all that remorse and regret?

Remember when hiding became your thing? Remember when you realized that they had been right along and your were now doing them a favor that they shouldn’t have to experience the fodder for all their complaints? Remember when it all became too much for one man to carry and the alcohol, sex or drugs stopped working, even temporarily to provide a modicum of escape? Do you remember that desperation and the relief that came from just giving up? Remember when you forgot how to love or how love felt and you just started riding that train to somewhere hoping that it provided some reasonable distraction from swallowing the quarter sized pill of your own self-awareness?

When did you get off that train or did your ride it from end to end hoping in some rare exception to the definition of insanity that you would somehow arrive at a different outcome, a positive outcome where it all made some sense? When did you find the gumption to try something new, to break free from the self taught lies repeated in the dark to convince your self that somehow you would find the light? Or did you go into the abyss and become what they had told you was the limit of your character and capability? Turning to the hopeless reality of your addiction to suffering, allowing yourself to love the tug of the vortex swirling to take you to nothingness, did you acquiesce to nightmare?

What happy ending? What transformative histology? What sane discovery lit the way to above ground traffic where life became breath and breath became belief or even pretense of caring about something, anything? What smile coaxed you from the shadow of portcullis onto garden path replete with Roses, and Children and Hope? What was that moment? What was the catalyst of your repair, the reason for your salvation, the answer to desperate quest? Was it found on the train halfway between now and then, half a mile from the road to some quaint village where no one cared about Venus or Mars, or had time for the stars?

Who have you become? Do you travel a different road to freedom and respect where your dreams are actually something to inspire children and the down trodden? Are you prancing and beating the drum of their castigation? Have you found the price of Love? I thought I saw you pass bye as the train came into station. The dour and sour grimace which has puzzled for so long evoking my compassion was touched by the light of peace. A notable peace not something found in local pub or community call to action, something beyond the pains of your own reflection in the Subway doors as your face slowly ebbed away. These questions are the price of interaction for we cannot know without the asking. So next time we meet don’t hide away so quickly for the pain even in its revelation seeks to heal not squander. For if the wound never sees the light of day or feels the healing passage of breeze and time upon it, it is doomed to simply fester in the darkness of our own ill gotten despair.