Torched Lance

Torched Lance …

I stagger by your habits and addictions in disgust

Those mini monuments that hold you hostage though deceased

You treat them like the filthy things they are, and you lust,—

as though you’re an addict with aspirations for release

 

Ultimatums are made and threats to livelihoods are crossed

one alveolus at a time, the grave cost to pay,

One little fire burning the village, ‘til everything is lost,

And breath becomes a ravaging feat for taxing each day.

 

Twenty times each day this copious feat is taxed,

Convincing yourself that you felt better, more relaxed,

You wake up on the slaver’s block preparing for the axe,

And like a robot your steps were measured by syntax

 

The morning smoke, the breakfast puff, the way you’d plan your steps

The winter frost on your hoary tips, the smoke rings dance with ice

The warnings stirred were not enough, the mind accepts

The inhales before your coffee sips, delusional but nice.

 

The brain enwrapped by ties of smoke, at least the poison,

to dance with inhibition, taunted like a frantic fiend,

attacking defenses, laughing, promoting itself as enjoyment,

in the background it chokes you, no matter how hard you wean.

 

It tempts you like some evil cult facilitator,

And you reflect its tale, like some debilitated disciple

Each weaning process, followed with mercurial misbehavior,

The steps in your feet to fail, like God was cruel and spiteful

 

How long, in the microcosm of Chronos’s thought?

Stifled in the backdrop, in simple smiles to trial,

The drive, the willpower, each day, with doggedness, fought,

I know the pain you speak, the want, the desire growing viral.

 

Every smoker is one with the idol Prometheus

At one point or another we all believed we could harness fire

Feed the desire of unity, spark the urge of obedience,

Placate hells from the auburn ribbon at the end of the lighter

 

The more you stare the more and more you lose who you are

Mesmerized by that flicker, that welcoming to a new ego

With that James Dean-like ruggedness in your repertoire

You feel like a superstar, no equal, but that too is deceitful

 

You suck in this poison, this invisible venom

Thinking still that your social status will somehow climb

That the next expiry note will not see your name on the vellum

maybe you are above it, immune to the stock paradigm.

 

The steps are not failures, but insufferable to take,

Breathing with immense stridor, like an avalanche atop you

Like God has his hands girded around your trachea

Or the devil has your airways pinned beneath his shoes

 

Feeble excuses, always the ruse, torched lance and the noose

Analogous companions, equipment for use, the ransom

against you at your own will, if the shoe fits, use it

No truce with the dragon, your life in hellacious abandon.

 

One last hit, fingertips scorched, blisters emerge, singed skin splits,

The urge for more, committed to yearn, while burning another,

There’s always a burning, on the edge we live, through all the fits,

We’ve done this before, this hurting, same old way we suffer.

 

Addicted to this shit, media scorns, gas station posters taunt,

Like a crack fiend dreams; withdrawal sucks and ire apexes

In money schemes they sell us toys, like “Juuls” they flaunt

We feel redeemed, though now we’re stuck in a new objective—

 

Aggressive methods they propagate, promoting new waves,

Though at the end of the day all they sate is addiction

Conviction to another drug, another way to be a slave

Another way the mind has learned to deal with affliction

~

© 2019 Paul Neglia

For more works about addiction, love, life struggles, Shakesperian style, and other great topics by this author see Paul Neglia Author Page.