Addiction

His parents taught him to embrace

Values pure and good and chaste

But somewhere on the axle of time

He got his bearing out of line.

It was one day at some school fete

He started with the cigarette

And from that time he stayed on it

Until he was a known addict.

The daily whiffs of nicotine

Ingested in his youthful being

Made him feel like such a man

Yet harmful on the other hand.

And while he drank his favourite liquor

His cigarette lit up with a flicker

And as the rum consumed his life

The drunken stupor was more rife.

Every time the youth would dine

He fed on whisky, beers and wine

And did not know that which he craved

Would’ve brought him early to his grave.

A playboy now, he goes around

And scatter his seed about the town

A life without restraint and wild

With every other woman, a child.

Like a corpse upon the ground

Within his mouth a fly – made mound

The image that he once had cherished

By alcohol was made to perish.

Precocious to the very core

He searched for new ways to explore

And this poor youth was not alone

For there were deviants all around.

Away from school in truancy

He craved XTC, E and X or just Stacy

Ecstasy, MDMA and lover’s speed

He abused during his gross misdeeds.

He saw the rude boys on the street

Daily on their tragic beat

And in their mouth a papered stick

That the “brethren” called the holy spliff.

Within his mind it made a point

The consumption of that poisonous joint

For those who of those joints partook

To him all had a mystic look.

Poor youth! He didn’t seem to know

That tragic is such way to go

And that it had no good to it

For they were headlong to a pit.

Pressured by peers to take that route

They too addicted in their youth

Dozens of youths not worth a penny

But misery loves much company.

Unable to resist them now

To the drug lord’s call he gladly bowed

And though it came at quite a price

The ganja was his drug of choice.

Within its sphere it seemed so rife

The usage of the “chillum pipe”

With a strange euphoria and groaning sound

They drew on it then passed it ‘round.

Oh when that very potent weed

Upon their brain cells gullibly feed

Who can in time those cell replenish

As they during those jaunts diminish.

Addicted to the poisonous weed

Lethargy robbed his every deed

All riveted to a corner spot

Like a human debris there to rot.

And when it didn’t seem high enough

He thought he had to spice it up

A little of the dusty white

Would make its potency just right.

So now he sought and got a lift

From the ganja laced with cocaine, spliff

Beyond the threshold of the pot

A higher lift he sought and got.

And when he reached that surreal height

By the cocaine’s potency and might

He jumped about and pranced so high

You think that he would reach the sky.

The happy dust had caused him pain

The white lady[1] led him down to shame

And what the deviants called snow

Was the very basis of his woe.

What fool the drug had made of him

That dim of wit, in virtue slim

And for himself without regard

A ravaged mind was his reward.

At such a young and tender age

The youth was by addiction caged

Deep in a world of darkness dwelled

Without the power to rebel.

He begged and stole to feed his habit

Once more addicted how hard to “kick it”

Beneath the weight he daily lugged

Of being addicted to many drugs.

He must survive yet had no work

No salary or wage or perk

All his ill-begotten means

Were from the fields of criminals glean.

No wage to buy or pay his rent

The open sky became his tent

His bed – the hard cold ground at nights

Told much about his worsening plight.

From gracious care and good upbringing

He made such reckless headlong fling

From heights of promise stoop so low

Into an underworld of woe.

How choking was his wretched yoke

He drank, he smoked and sniffed coke

But little did he know that these

Would lead to his quite young decease.

A man deranged and set at naught

Much less than porter without froth

He couldn’t e’en pretend to be

For his ruin was there for all to see.

And he whose life fell into shambles

Serve us today as a good example

That when it comes to making choice

We should choose the good and leave the vice.

And those that brought him up – that lad

Were left behind so mad and sad

For he was cut down in his prime

And sadly vanished out of time.

How hard the family had tried

To save the youth before he died

But nothing seemed to work at all

To lift him up from that great fall.

One day before the youth had passed

He solemnly said with great remorse

“If I could live my life again

I would live to have a better end.”

“Tell all,” he said, “of those you know

Be they my kith or kin or foe

Keep far from cigarettes, drinks and drugs

For in them there’s no bliss to grudge.”

Within the cemetery on his grave

There is a message that’s engraved

“Leave alcohol and drugs my friend

For they could cause your early end.”

[1] Reference is made to the multiple names commonly used to describe each category of drugs referred to in the poem. The term “white lady” is one of the names given to cocaine obviously on account of the colour of the substance. The term is in not used to refer to any racial group in a disparaging or condescending manner.