SOBER POEMS
THE WRITING OF SOBER POEMS
I sat yet again contemplating my being a transgender-woman. I wrote “Sober Poems” after 4 years into my transition. Up until a point shortly before I wrote this poem, I drank alcohol fairly regularly; and in all honesty, I was an alcoholic. Alcoholism actually helped me in my decision to transition into a “girl”. I suffered from gender-dysphoria all my life, and alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide ideation are very common in unresolved gender-dysphoria. These mental challenges for me created a very long term and powerful fundamental depression. The combination of alcoholism and suicidal ideation somehow freed me to throw away my “male” persona, and to seek help in gender transition. I immediately stopped being depressed.
Unfortunately, my consumption of alcohol persisted. I lied to myself, and my wife that I had it under control, but it was held a bay enough for me to maintain that lie. While on a business trip of several days, I visited a restaurant / bar in a small town during their off season. I had dinner and some drinks, and the next thing I remember is waking up in my hotel room with my eight-week-old vagina bleeding. I learned that one of the people at the bar worked at that hotel, and apparently put me to bed. I had my vaginoplasty only eight weeks earlier, and I was very careful with healing, but it had not bleed for over a month now. I bleed for the next two days.
I turned myself into a hospital for examination because I thought I was molested. They found linear abrasions up and down my vaginal lining, possibly from digital penetration with untrimmed finger nails. After talking with a detective, I realized I had little recourse but to get on with life. I went home to recover physically and mentally. I failed miserably, and I started drinking to an excess even I was not used to. I drank a lot, and I started questioning my decision to transition, I started to reimagine the suicidal ideations, and I felt very lost. My drinking was so excessive that I became paralyzed from alcohol poisoning. I then wife took me to the hospital, where I sobered up for a day or two. Upon returning home, I re-entered an alcoholic induced stupor. Luckily, I realized that I was going to lose being a girl if I continued, not by de-transitioning, but via death. I called a detox center and put myself into treatment. Seventy days later I was home and sober, but relapsed within a month. I again put myself into detox, and this time I stayed sober.
In sobriety I found that my emotional poem writing was significantly less spontaneous and prolific. I really liked my poems, and I enjoyed their truth and support, but sober poems are hard to write. The I wrote the poem you see bllow.
SOBER POEMS
Sober poems are hard to write
Sobriety controls one’s emotional plight
But sober is what I must be – Once a drunken girl –
I never again want to be
But…The poems – Drink & tears, and poems poured out
I was new to girl. The emotions so…so strong
I cried while writing almost every poem
Each poem a truth – The drink did not make them a lie
Often, I had to revisit “why” – Sober poems change the “why”
Sixty-plus years of “why” – Falls away
The sober “why” is concerned with only today
The sober “why” respects the past, but –
The “why” of earlier ages effects can’t last
All the “why’s” over the years – They are what brought me here
To sober poems
To revisit the “why” of today
So many times, I was told; I was doomed to only regret
Sitting alone, quiet, in the still night, afraid that they might be right
The “why’s” of my prior life; won that fight
Now a transgender-girl – Aged seventy-two
And
Sober poems are hard to write
My current “why” truth, narrower in scope
Never a young girl be – Not twenty, or any age – Already past
Today’s “why”
Jennifer predicted: You will wake up – And –
You are just a girl
Get on with your day
Almost there
That is how I spend most of the day
Just a girl
I now know that
Just a girl
Was always the goal
So, “why” is easily answered
So, that I could be
Just a girl
Just a girl that writes
Sober poems