Poem: Codependency Love

Codependent love has no boundaries. There is no end or beginning. No you or me. There is just one, a fusion of two dysfunctional people. When one experiences trauma, the other does, too. The dysfunction persists and flourishes into an almost insurmountable catastrophe.

When a person finds herself living for the other person who has an addiction, and is only happy when the addict is sober, then she is just as unhealthy as the one with the substance abuse problem.

As the codependent enables, he or she helps to maintain an unhealthy dynamic and, in turn, becomes a part of the problem. The solution is often for the codependent to let go, to take care of him or herself, and to allow the addict to do the same. My poem, Codependency Love, explores the dynamic between the addict and the enabler.

Her husband’s addiction,

much too hard

for her to endure.

For he was she

and she was he

and ignoring the problem

was a solution

that both stubbornly agreed.

She hid everything

and he concealed the truth,

chased the white lies

like elusive fireflies.

She protected and abetted

and hated his very soul.

He depended and resented,

picking up the pieces,

begged and pleaded,

and rescued him from dives,

cheap barflies, and lifted him

from the floor of his fallen bar stool.

She’d clean his soiled self

and promise that next time

would be her last,

but she couldn’t quit,

her dependency, her control,

her fears wouldn’t let go

or break the pattern

of cease and assist.

Even after many years passed

and more of the shame,

she foolishly believed that one day,

he’d be sober again

and her troubles washed away

like the dirty laundry, she hauled each week

to the coin-operated machines.