Three Syllables Describing Addiction

 

Time breaks down, the therapist

Said in her practical voice, trying

To explain the nature of craving.

 

Time breaks down and stops

Going forward—it backs up,

Lurches and pools in long

 

Periods of stasis. Closed loops

Or broken circuits. Yes: addicts

Are fucked, and live out of

 

Sequence with everyone else.

While they’re financing their next

Fix, robbing their own mothers,

 

Or screwing some stranger

Standing up in an alley, we’re

Unraveling beside them, time-

 

Traveling ourselves all the way

Back to the start where it might

Be possible to blot all of us out

 

And put us out of our misery

Before this plot ever gets started

And pulls us into this future.