Tag Archive for Drugs and Alcohol

The Car

I’m driving

down a road with no destination.

Crowding the backseat

are Fifteen, Sixteen, and Seventeen.

They all love me.

Love me? What do they know about love?

I keep driving

trying to hide what we seek.

Happiness.

It’s hidden in my bag.

Cradled inconspicuously next to the boys.

Our path soon wavers

and the boys attempt to sound like men

as their voices rise.

I want to keep on going with our lives,

but I pull over,

knowing it’s best.

I smoke my Happiness

while the older boys

leave parts of Fifteen’s life on the side of the road.

Hopefully someone will come along and pick up the pieces.

History is destined to repeat itself

and too quickly the car is filled only with me and Seventeen

who wishes to show his affections

and have his daily dose of Happiness.

I drive a little farther

and park in front of a beaten-up motel without a name

that opens its doors to us

Seventeen goes to check in

keeping his Happiness near and dear.

I wait in the car

my hand on the ignition

knowing I can leave,

wondering where I have driven my life.

For Greg

You’re not a zombie. You toke it and you smoke it and you drink it and you

think it, think things like the zombies in the songs about people like you.

But you don’t look like them; you can’t be like them. You hang with your

non-zombie friends who are just like you but really not like you, who talk

like you and walk like you. You and your non-zombie friends, who when we

talk about what you do and why you do you deny you do at all. I’m sober,

you say as you walk up to one of non-zombie friends with a 20-dollar bill in

your hands, and I sit there and don’t think I’m stupid like you. You who is

so smart and so sweet and so caring and so stupid as to throw everything

else away for the high because you like the high and your friends like the

high and why not get high? Why not get high? But hey, if you don’t want to

it’s cool because I kinda like you even though you know you are lying and

you want me to be like you so you don’t have to throw me away too. I wish I

could be like you, but I won’t throw me away for you because even though I

like you I like me too. You and your non-zombie friends. You lead such

normal lives, you fool everyone by looking so damned normal, and you do it

on purpose so you do I know you do. Maybe you are normal, because isn’t

normal what the majority’s doing? Maybe everyone’s used to everyone because

everyone and their mother does it too, they toke it and smoke it, drink it

and think it those thoughts just like you, they dress like you get in to

messes like you skip their classes like you but they’re not like you. They’

re not like you. And anymore you’re not like you either. You wear the mask

you and your friends like to share, and I put up my barriers like I do when

I don’t trust you but I do trust you, when you’re you. But you’re not

because you’re like your non-zombie friends now, having fun like they do but

we had fun too, you know. We had fun when you were you. I’ll make you a

deal. Don’t be like me and I won’t be like you and that’s OK so long as you’re

like you, OK? Just so long as you’re really you.