The winter used to feel long.

Ecstasy was a pill
on the tip of my tongue;
a common thread I missed.

I used to walk the streets
as if I did not deserve my shadow.
The imminent falling bomb
the only reason to exist.

Sobriety was a sleight of hand

hiding in plain sight.
Paradise were the moments
where I did not have to fight.

I used to sing for love
I would never get back again.

I used to talk to God
in the absence of a friend.

The winter used to feel long.

The summers were too brief.
Turned to every medicine
for transient relief.

I broke my back for a living.

Now I drink in the sun-glass shade.
No anaesthetic; no clouded mind.
I walk the river

a thousand miles
from all I left behind.