The Addict Poem by Tom Billsborough

In a dark alleyway
Odiferous with dog droppings
Needles and tin litter his surrounding space,
The pallid youth, curled up in a cardboard womb,
Or coffin, prepares himself for the gradual dying
Of sweat and the clamping withdrawal.
He must face yet
One more fix for the comatose heaven
To relight his system
In a dark world of diminishing returns.
He burns as he tightens the tourniquet
And injects his solution, the only solution
To his terrible craving.
Does he not hear his mother's agonized sobbing?