Member Poem

People used to like me,
Why wasn’t that enough?
Now they don’t invite me
They don’t call, or text, or check up
In fact, they will avoid me
Like I’m the one not to trust
But, if I recall correctly,
They were the ones who messed it up

They were the ones who said “Just do it”
They were the ones who said “It’s fun”
They were the ones who said “It’s all of us”
So why do I stand here now as one?

Here’s what they never told me
(I like to think they just never knew)
This substance would control me
It sounds clichéd, but IT’S TRUE

It will own you from the first day,
(And though with some it might take a bit longer),
The substance ALWAYS gets its way
You can try to resist, but it’s stronger
With some it occurs in an instant
With others it could take years
But the path and destination
Is paved with the same blood and tears
From the second it took hold of me
It would never let me go
Not for a day, an hour, a second
In fact, the hold would grow

I used to have big life plans,
I used to have goals and dreams
Now I don’t dream ever
I’m lucky if I even sleep

The friends that stood beside me
That made the same decisions as I
Some of them stopped quickly –
The gamble was too high
Some of them still sit around me
As people I hardly recognize
They smile with their usual faces
But I can see it in their eyes

They either share the struggle I do
Or they are well on their way, I can see,
Though they are still in the beginning
Thinking they won’t reach the same level as me
I remember having that kind of thinking
Thinking I was better than my peers
“I’ve only tried it once or twice,
They’ve being doing this for years”

It’s funny how, like it was just natural,
“Doing” soon replaced “Tried”
In hindsight, that was the warning
I should have read the signs

Now, looking back and thinking,
These weren’t ever my friends
Friends are supposed to protect one another
Not throw each other to the deep end
Although, if I’m really being honest
After a while, it became all about me
I too stopped being much of a friend
And stopped caring about my family

I remember one day my mom asked me
She said “Why don’t you just get up and walk away?
Why do you keep making these same bad choices?
Explain why you can’t just make a change?”

Because, mom, it’s just like being HUNGRY
You’ve got to eat to survive
But always ALWAYS wanting
NEVER FULL or SATISFIED
Even as people died around me
Some were friends, some I hardly knew,
The desperate need inside me
Only grew and grew and grew

The worst part of this all,
Is that I didn’t even want to
I always said I never would, so how is this what it’s come to?
I remember weighing it up in my head,
Knowing the risk was high
Knowing what I should have said, but reasoning
“It’s just this one time”

I never considered losing myself,
I just knew I didn’t want to lose my friends
I wish someone had told me
I would lose both in the end