Rough draft, in the wake of another tragic loss.

GEM IN THE GUTTER

You were my high
while we were high on life

until crushed by despair,
fatigue of the repetitive kind,

a nostalgic young adult
needing a fix

for the ceaseless crick
in my neck stiff with deadlines.

It was time to become awful,
truly awful, beyond whiny nuisance.

As entertaining as scrolling,
slumming came naturally.

Nothing like the frisson
of secret knowledge to inspire,

my trophy skin
a transdermal channel to oblivion.

A whisper of fentanyl =a boom of TNT.
Ah, progress. How far we’ve come

from slugging rum to facilitate
amputation on the battlefield

to a substance so potent a whiff
can dispatch an EMT.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat,
forget that I am mortal

until the hazy downpour of squalor
viciously stung, and the time came to crash.