I get why people do drugs.
I love drugs.
They don’t love me.
They fuck with me.

And then once
I’m off the good drugs,
I am put on drugs
that I don’t love.

Making me hate drugs.
Making me want more
of the good drugs.

You know why people
want drugs.
It’s the escape.
Listen to Blue Note,
then be on Blue Note
and listen to Blue Note.

You’ll find Blue, baby,
on your acid tongue.
I say acid.
Ha, this day and age,
I can’t have
two Mountain Dews.

Too much coffee
can make me shake.
Maybe that acid
passed me by, baby.

That was just envelope.
That was just sugar cubes.
But the mushrooms,
they were mushrooms.
And the weed was weed.
And the coke was coke.

And the ketamine
was burning on the stove,
but not for me.

And the heroin
was heroin.
And the ecstasy
mixed with Depakote,
did shit for me.

So my friends did E,
and I did Johnnie’s Adderall,
and I stayed up playing guitar
seeing the sun,
with beautiful exasperation.

The dried eyes starving
for reprise
from the sunshine.

Needing melatonin,
bendable waves of light.
We were bendable,
flipping quarters,
sinking balls
into red cups.

We were something,
weren’t we?

Now the drugs I do…
Oh baby, they’ll make
you blue.

They will make
your teeth chatter
and your lips purse.

They will make
your belly swell,
and you better sleep,
daddy-o.

‘Cause if you see
that unnatural sleep time,
don’t wake up Fred
to make the Donuts.

Sleep that sleep, baby.
Oh dig that eight-hour
and coffee in the morning.
Yeah.

My mouth waters,
my tongue clicks
against the roof of my mouth.
Oh baby, those
unnatural movements.
That sleep, daddy-o,
that will settle
it all down.

 

Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly. His third book, Train of Thought 2: Almost Home is available now at the Oddball Book Store.