Poetry in recovery challenge Oct 13

Motivation
23

Angels from Hell in Recovery

From fire we rose, with our wings torn and charred,
From nights without mercy, from days that were hard.
The chains tried to bind us, the flames tried to keep,
But still we awoke from the long, haunted sleep.

We are angels from hell, yet our voices now sing,
Of the hope that was born in the ash of the wing.
The darkness once claimed us, but could not remain,
For light learned to blossom from sorrow and pain.

In houses of healing we choose now to dwell,
Though once we were trapped in the prisons of hell.
Each doorway reminds us, each moment we see,
That freedom was forged in our own misery.

Now hope builds its shelter, and joy lights its flame,
Forgiveness and mercy have given us name.
The ruins behind us no longer define,
The angels from hell have learned how to shine.

Each morning we’re offered a choice we must make:
Return to the fire or healing to take.
And every step forward, our spirits rebel,
Proclaiming our birthright as angels from hell.

Though scarred by the fire, we carry no shame,
Our suffering forged us, yet we are the same

So daily we rise, and we dare to be whole,
Recovery mending the cracks in the broken soul.
Though scarred by the fire, our story will tell
Even angels can fly when they’ve walked out of hell.

Simplyme

24

We cannot rule the present hour,
Nor grasp tomorrow’s fleeting power.
The future hides, a shadowed flame,
The past alone will speak our name.
Addiction’s path was black and deep,
It stole our days, it choked our sleep.
It bound our hands, it dimmed our eyes,
It filled our mouths with hollow lies.
We drank with demons, bled with pain,
We walked through fire, we wore the chain.
The world grew silent, cold, and bare,
As if no mercy lingered there.
But in the ruins, faint and small,
A quiet strength began to call.
Not in the thunder, not in might,
But whispered low through endless night.
It pulled us from the grave we made,
It broke the curse, the debt we paid.
It lit the torch, it cleared the way,
And taught our broken hearts to stay.
The past is not a noose of blame,
Nor iron bars, nor searing flame.
It is the teacher, sharp, austere,
It brought us trembling to the clear.
Now in the dark, we find the hand
That lifts us up, that helps us stand.
Through pain, through loss, through shattered will,
A deeper voice sustains us still.
So let the shadows teach their part,
And let recovery guard the heart.
From death to life, from night to day,
We rise because we chose to stay.

Simplyme

25

I thought my heart was shaped alone private, secret art,
A life beneath the sunlight, hidden deep inside my heart.
I wrapped my truth in silence, stitched shame into each seam,
And walked through crowded rooms as if I lived outside a dream.
I told myself I differed a stranger to the throng
That no one felt my hunger, no one knew my private wrong.
So quiet grew my footsteps, so distant was my song,
I lived a life of desperation, polite and brittle, wrong.
Then one night I followed fear and sat within a ring,
Where someone spoke the language that my broken soul could sing.
Their words like flint on flint struck sparks inside my chest,
A mirror held to loneliness, a voice that would not rest.They named the same confusions, the same hunger, the same ache;
They spoke of slips and longings, the way the spirit shakes.
My shame began to soften as their truth became my map —
I found my secret echoed, a fellow wanderer’s clap.
How strange that under labels, creeds, and careful, scripted lives,
There beat the same small frightened heart that scours and still survives.
We hide behind our classes, we hide behind our skins,
But underneath so fragile the human story thins.
I learned to risk the danger of being seen, unveiled,
To offer up the trembling I had always kept curtailed.
Rejection loomed like thunder, but silence proved more vast;
So I stepped into the storm and let the past be past.
To share is not surrender it’s salvage, and it’s light;
A hand that meets another hand, and steadies in the night.
We are not islands grounded in our separate seas;
We’re vessels that, when opened, learn how to receive.
Yes, I was lonely once a prisoner of my dread
Believing I was different, that I must hide instead.
But hearing one small truth in a circle’s honest air
Became a kind of rescue, a way back from despair.
So may I risk rejection for the solace of the known,
May I trust that when I speak, I’m no longer so alone.
May courage thread my throat, and may my story be a key
For in the sharing, softened, we find room again to breathe.
This is no final miracle; recovery is slow
A winter-thawing river, a patient, steady flow.
But when we speak, we kindle when we reach, we find a hand
And in that shared unmasking, we begin to learn to stand.

Simplyme

27

Love in recovery

Before recovery, shadows reigned,
Hearts were heavy, spirit chained.
Anger, pity, sorrow’s tide,
The world kept turning we cursed the ride.
But in these rooms, a light was shown,
A seed of love, a heart once stone.
We learn that love is more than breath,
It conquers fear, it conquers death.
Love is care for another’s pain,
A hand that lifts through storm and rain.
It makes the ride a sacred song,
It teaches us where we belong.
In fellowship, the truth is clear,
We matter most when others are near.
For many of us, love’s first flame,
Was sparked in meetings, called by name.
The program whispers what is true:
Love is the work that carries you.
Each step, each share, each rising dove
This path is life, this path is love.

Simplyme

28

Monster I’m up against

I always underestimated the foe,
Its grip was deeper than I’d know.
A smiling mask, a gentle friend,
That whispered sweetly to my end.
I thought I’d break it with my will,
But chains grew tighter, tighter still.
Each promise made, each vow I swore,
Became its laughter at my core.
It wore my face, it stole my name,
It burned my joy, it fed my shame.
I battled shadows, night on night,
Mistaking ruin for the fight.
Yet here I stand, scarred but awake,
The poison lost the throne it’d take.
For every wound became my key,
And from its grip, I wrestled me.

Simplyme

29

Recovery

I breathe in, and I remember
today is not yesterday,
and tomorrow has not yet arrived.
I stand only in this moment a moment I can choose,
a moment I can honor.
I have walked through storms,
through shadows that promised escape
but delivered only chains.
I know the weight of despair.
I know the ache of emptiness.
But I also know the truth:
I am still here.
Each breath is proof of survival.
Each step is proof of courage.
Each choice toward healing
is a quiet act of rebellion
against the darkness that once ruled me.
I remind myself:
Recovery is not a finish line.
It is the steady painting of my days,
the rebuilding of my soul,
stroke by stroke,
truth by truth,
moment by moment.
Today I choose gentleness with myself.
Today I choose patience with the process.
Today I choose life.
I am not who I was.
I am becoming who I was meant to be.

Simplyme

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30

Broken Chains

We walked a road of poison breath,
a path that promised only death.
Our spirit starved, our minds decayed,
yet onward through the fog we strayed.

We dared not ask where it would end,
the grave was waiting as a friend.
One drink, one pill, one ghostly toke,
each step another chain we broke.

But something stirred, a shattered cry,
a will that whispered Do not die.
Though change was terror, sharp and cold,
we left the path we always sold.

The choice was hard, a final fight,
to trade the coffin for the light.
A thousand phantoms pulled us back,
yet still we turned from death’s attack.

Now on this road our feet are led,
where hope walks living, not the dead.
The map Twelve Steps etched deep in pain,
guides us through storm, through loss, through rain.

No longer slaves to shadow’s art,
we walk a path to heal the heart.
The journey lasts while we still breathe,
a covenant we choose to keep.

Simplyme

31

Life is hard…but so is addiction…

So choose your hard….

The truth is life is hard.
No saint escapes the scar.
Each breath is both a prayer and blade,
each dawn reveals who we are.
We learn through ruin’s mercy,
through surrender dressed in pain,
that power comes not from conquering
but kneeling in the rain.
Step One was not defeat
it was the cracking of the stone,
where light leaked through the fracture
to prove we’re not alone.
We fought against the current,
wasting all our flame,
trying to bargain with the chaos
that never played our game.
But problems are not demons
they are mirrors in disguise,
reflections of the buried gods
that sleep behind our eyes.
The spirit is a muscle
forged in ache and fear and doubt,
each trial is the hammer’s strike
that shapes our faith throughout.
At first, we curse the shadows
why me, why this, why now?
Yet pain’s a holy riddle
we only solve by bow.
And slowly, through the ruin,
through the nights we thought we’d die,
we feel the pulse of something vast
a Power breathing by.
Light and dark entwine like veins,
one body, one design
where sorrow feeds the roots below,
and faith ascends the vine.
We are both the wound and healer,
the whisper and the scream,
the sinner who found sanctuary
inside a broken dream.
So yes, life is hard
but hardness hides the key
in every loss, a resurrection,
in every pain, the sea.

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