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One Bite

in a hallway
empty cigarette packs
fast food wrappers
most of the burger on the floor
where a needle point
pierces a pool of puke
odor paints the walls
blood drops seep
into chair arms worn
by tapping and snapping
to an uneven rhythm's pulse
songs only the sitter hears
spilled beer stains the floor like ink blots
no shrink could interpret while cans
kicked aside line the edges
of a threadbare rug
each pan is glued with petrified food
for the roaches and mice and live flies
who land on the dead
the sink is clogged with who knows what
no one's looked in a mirror for a year
clothes come and go
from the same damp pile
the toilet won't flush and it's almost filled up
rent money is gone
from grandma's purse
moving day is coming again
an abandoned house
sits down the road where can hide
bluish pallid faces
blackened yellow beneath pale gums
soft-boiled blood-yoked eyes
scabs in piles beside the chair
above a floor where
a dead rat rots
pawn shop stubs climb the table by the door
no phone will ring
no doorbell buzz
and out just has no way
twenty-four hour perpetual night
in grandma's bedroom with no light
lies a bible that says
adam stopped at one bite

Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Editing stage: 
Content level: 
Not Explicit Content

Comments

thanks teddy. nice to meet you also. i have belonged for quite some time but have not been able to post. i will rectify that.

author comment

much scarier than any "Killer" story I've ever written! All the more so, because this is true life. There are people that I have known, that have escaped from these nightmares, but just barely, because they have friends and relatives that took enough time and made enough effort to help them get away. I have seen the effects of such a life and the scars that it leaves; not just with the immediate victims, but the trauma that ensues with the spreading ripples of contact with it. Many children and siblings and friends have forever been touched with the sickness that comes with addiction. Thank you for writing about something that is all too often overlooked because the victims are portrayed as being weak. It is surely a disease as much as any cancer or other malady. Great job!
~ Geez.
.

There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.

thanks. a friend wrote a short poem about his family. he just told it. i wanted to show it. i have not been personally involved with anyone addicted to drugs. but i have been in places that allowed me to become familiar with things.

author comment
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