Yet Another Drug Poem

By Spiro



There’s this idea floating around
That people use SMACK
Like people use coke
Like it was just another cliché
Well if you enjoy puking, reeling, and breaking into a cold clammy
sweat
Give it a shot, excuse the pun
To be honest
With all the hypertext multimedia online cyber
Infobahn tele communicative interactive digital
Access we have
To hours and hours of useless and
Insignificant information
Dope does fit into the niche quite nicely
Once you’re over the ugly bodily expulsion stage
See if the sixties were about expanding
The nineties are about erasing

So you say you need to be one with your peers
In oblivion.
OK here’s what you need to know…
Heroine 101
1) Never trust a junkie
2) Your habit is more important than anyone else’s problems
3) No one has to know
Sounds easy right
Don’t use every day
You use on a three-day cycle for a year
Binging here and there
Till one weekend you go for 5 days without
And you know you’re irritable cause you’re tired
And the constipation you have, must have been
something you ate
And those cramps in your knees are due to humidity
And later your constipation turns into the runs
And your skin is crawling but it must be because you
haven’t
Cleaned the sheets
And you want to throw up but dry heave instead
So you walk up to the corner and score two bags
And BLAM! everything’s comfortable again
Oh you thought withdrawal only happened to
JUNKIES

So what the hell you figure
I can maintain this
It’s just a lifestyle change
But you’re not getting hi anymore.
You’re just not getting sick
You do dope to stay well now
So one day you hear, down on tenth street they’re
Selling some monster bags
So you forgo your usual guy and buy from some seedy
tenth street crackhead
What you didn’t know was that
Whoever cut this shit was hi at the time and screwed
up the ratio
And this is the purest dope your gaunt
Underweight pathetic little body has ever booted
You used to be frightened of needles

When you wake up in the ambulance
You wonder what your mom will think
You’ll need her to pick up the bill cause as usual
You’re broke

Things to look forward to while hi

Say good-bye to all your old friends
They wouldn’t understand
Say hello to your new roommate who sells your stereo
Your new posture is fashionable
Stooped over, collapsed and shaky
Your new apartment is dark, small
In a dangerous neighborhood but
Strategically close to where you cop
Your complexion is a pale yellow
You have zits
The methadone they put you on makes you sicker than
Dope
So you figure you’ll use both
You get hepatitis
You’re broke
Your vein wall collapses and scars your arm
You’re broke
You spend the night in jail on possession charges
And someone steals your watch
You’re broke
You shoot an air bubble into someone’s arm while
you’re hi and they
Die
You’re broken
Bathing becomes optional…

Let’s make a few things clear
There is no such thing as a
SOCIAL HERIONE ADDICT
There is nothing social about it
Nodding off doesn’t leave room for conversations
Junkies don’t make for lasting friendships
Martyrdom is about self-sacrifice not self-destruction
Needles are not status symbols
Vomit is not glamorous
Suffering is not romantic
Heroine is an ugly excuse for people not to deal

(Taken from Verses That Hurt)