POETRY BY DARK HALF

The Day After

He wakes up to yet another desperate day
As the song says, 'fighting for survival'
He looks around him, looking at
The hungry eyes, the calculated gestures
Of so many like him

As the day wore on, he sat thinking, ever alert
About how he'd ended up there
The wasted times, the deceitful friends
Those he'd called his group
Who had eventually introduced him
To hell on earth.

At first it had been fun, cheating the teachers
Avoiding the parents, the knowing eyes of his family
Eventually he'd found his home outside the family
A home that moved as the group wandered
Usually on some corner, harassing passersby,
Beating up other groups, useless turf fights

Though they didn't go to school they found themselves
on higher levels soon, the smoke blinding them
the chemicals taking them farther and farther up
Until the time came that each day was a struggle
To get the next fix; to beg, borrow or steal
Something, something to sell for yet another dose

The many trips to be questioned, shrugged off
On return boasting to the group, his FAMILY
That it had been nothing, he'd been cool
Of course, nothing mattered but survival
But survival now meant dependence, daily, hourly
On more chemicals, for more opiates. Minutes crawling by
Until the next fix.

He started to notice that life was leading nowhere
That there was no point, no destiny and even the path...
The path was now blurred, as his vision was so often blurred
The passing pain of cheating a friend to get a fix,
The ache of being cheated on, beaten up or humiliated
By so-called friends, by passers by, and in front of
His family, all that had mattered to him, and parents

The episodes of passing out increasing day by day
Waking up feeling strange, with no recollection of what happened.
The BEST of friends incarcerated, sick or just lost somehow


And then waking up after one wild day, in a bed, in hospital
Sick and tired beyond belief, eventually surrounded by family
By worried and crying parents, by his baby sisters and brothers

Then the trip to this place, finding his way slowly again
But even then having trouble, half his mind seeming
To not function, many memories totally inaccessible;
his whole body wasted

He wondered if he would ever be alright again,
If he could leave behind his past

Copyright©DarkHalf9June2004

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