Addictions grip me like cold,
Like ghosts haunting castles
And I breathe through blue lips
And dilated eyelids flicker, flicker
With the light bulbs filtering grains
Of conjured up demons and tears
Of old rains on tree trunks
As tin foil roll up sweet high
And I ground to dust.
Sweet toke poke my throat
With smoke and exhale a little
Then inhale like fear, wide eyed
And sweaty, palm twisting a joint
Mixed with weed and crushed crystals.
Higher than the most high is a lie,
I sit low on the chair, sinking deep
Into my wrinkled suit and tie askew
Until I am nothing more but
A breathing space, snoring into tomorrow,
A demigod, a demon, a fallen angel, death.
Ha! drunken stupor stooping to fall
Before doorsteps clinging to closed doors
Holding loved ones mourning lost ones
And the stink of vomitus
And soiled trousers and bleary eyed
Men mourning over shot glasses
Holding hope and memory,
Fear and penury.
Leave the pipe here in this
Darkened space of a single bulb
Brightening the single form
Of depressed humanity
Lying, spread on the floor, lost
To the trembling tunes of love
Spilling from scratched phone calls
That forgot the name of those
Who carry the cross of a sin
Forgotten in the debris of the high.
©warpedpoetic, 2018.