L U M I N A * N O S T R I

  The Next Day On the walk home there are large stones laced with orange,  no, brown  leaves a breeze across the landscape my hair is down to dance in it. “We celebrated you  last night,” I say to the bridge, to the birds to the pebbles that crunch  beneath my feet. Seasons change, that’s the law; our mortal assessment  of cruelly or kindly  so is of disinterest to the trees.

 Home is a Country with its own smells,  and sites, and seals. it's our children's  mother tongue,  a language they learn long before they walk. There, we honor our traditional plates, our household gods, our funeral rites home is a country, and like all immigrants will tell you while leaving may have been the right choice, it's not without its  costs.

 Sobriety and Me ( for my kids) Cutie kids, what I want to bequeath you about redemption is it has to be chosen, and that choosing never ends. Getting drunk is, literally, always an option, and each year sober the ticket price of doing so rises. As an addict-in-recovery everyday you get a special visit from these three fun Aunties: Ms. “What are you willing to obliterate?” Good ol’ “What, on bad dice, are you willing to roll?” and their compassionate sister, “How many people are you willing to, knowingly,  hurt?” Everyday you sip your tea with them, until you choose your “nones” and “nothings” and surrender to the endless power your human soul inherited to endure. Even still, other elixirs will find you, so save yourself some heartache, and choose to find other sobrinas , choose to not to go it alone. The only things that can hurt you are the things you hide so gather, and listen, to not all those you expect, but to all who too are willing, In such company I swear, you’ll con...