In August 1999, I was struggling with getting clean. Ravaged from five years of hardcore partying at in the Dallas club scene, I collapsed on the doorstep of a friend’s home who owned a counseling center for drug addicted youth. I felt hard into the drug scene for five years (been clean about 23 years now.) Life was cruel to me in the ‘drug world’ back then. After the death of two friends close to me, and after about 10 failed relationships, I had nothing left to give. Poetry and writing in general had been a sort of ‘healing process’ for me since the late 80’s, when I survived a hate crime which left me with a painful tumor and subsequent surgery that changed my life. That’s when I started writing and journaling, and thank God I did. This poem was written, as I stated, on the doorstep of a counseling office, right when I decided to ‘get clean,’ over 23 years ago today. Back then, I was into ‘freeflow poetry,’ meaning, I wrote nonstop for 2 minutes until I was done. Some of it may rhyme, some of it may not, it’s just a free flow of ideas and emotions, straight from the heart. It’s heartfelt, shocking, disturbing, loving and a mish-mash of dashed dreams and the highest highs. Here goes…
“PULL THE PLOW” by Brian Bolding
(appeared in “Suicidal Swan Song” Poetry Book #45, Aug-Sep 99)
August 20, 1999
*
pull the plow
reap what you sow
here and now
you know what you know
*
wherever you go
whatever you do
whatever you say
it all comes back to you
*
pull the plow
milk the cow
do what you do
what the law will allow
*
reap what you sow
here and now
kick back and watch
the filthy flowers grow
*
nothing new
the good and the bad
the happy the malevolent
the irregular and the sad
*
it all comes back to you
it all comes back to you
it all comes back to you
*
pull the plow
time to fertilize
open your eyes
you gotta realize
*
tie your shoes
you got nothing to lose.
*
reap what you sow
dont stop the flow.
*
8.20.99 747 pm BB.
Ballistik Coffee Boy. 
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