I come to you weak,
but not yet ready to get on my knees.
My sponsor tells me to surrender,
that the way out means willingness
to ask for help, break down and break open,
to twist a faith-shaped key into the place
where they say the wind gets knocked outta you
when you fall too hard and too fast.
You sent help my way, but I hid, stood at the window
and watched through the blinds as other people kicked dope,
tossed their pipes in the garbage, then picked up keytags,
added up days and months, beat the odds.
I’ma slave til’ my home is the grave.
I have prayed to a God I don’t believe in
to let this be the last high, to take me
before my children are old enough
to remember me this way.
You never know if you’re looking
into the eyes of an addict.
It probably happens a dozen times a day:
your son’s math teacher, an aging rap star,
the grocery store cashier whose hand you almost touch.
What is the name for those whose wings sprout
like tiny knives beneath their clothes,
those unable to say I’m slippin, I’m fallin.
A man in a wheelchair sits in the rain
on the corner. He holds a sign that says:
I had some bad luck. Better days are coming.
Please have mercy.
*DMX song lyrics are in italics (from “Prayer,” “Ruff Ryders,” and “Slippin'”)
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Joan Kwon Glass author of “How to Make Pancakes For a Dead Boy” (Harbor Editions, 2022,) was a finalist for the 2021 Subnivean Award, a finalist for the 2021 Lumiere Review Writing Contest & serves as Poet Laureate for the city of Milford.
Photo by Duncan Cumming.
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