Twelve

By the 12th step of recovery
My true life came to this:
Twelve friends betrayed me
Eleven homes had stayed me
Ten drugs filled spaces
Nine masks made faces
Eight fighters threw me
Seven lovers knew me
Six head-sick siblings
…Five Secret Things…
Four punished crimes
Three degrees
Two mind grenades
And a-part-soul in a body

Parallel

look forward in awe
not backward in anger,
make that double-take on our dual doppelganger,
and with both tongues immortalise
and with each hand dichotomise
the thought, the word, the glittering prize

a duel of twins, a dangerous game,
though ripped apart we yet remain
with twisted lies to split our sin
like lost stars locked in fatal spin

the schisms in this two-tone voice
are echoes of our our schizoid choice:
to take the one-way parallel
which beams to heaven or to hell
- the same old place, though we can't tell