Picture it:
one of us is foaming at the mouth.
Who really cares what the other is doing?
Because the spotlight
hangs like a noose against the overdose;
oh, how beautiful and pale white
one of us will soon be.

Flashback, one hour,
laughter plucking the chords
behind our tongues,
spitting slick
bouncing off the walls
of the tour bus.

Forward, one year;
I turn twenty. One day
I will catch up to you.
Minus five days, I sink
and think, god,
did they ever bury you
without the lights on?

I know. I don’t need
it explaining to me
that the inevitable takes us all
one day, that of addiction,
that gaunt-white
Dickensian phantom,
comes to claim back
the transactions.

Only,
it was never like that.
I never knew you,
and there was no danger
of losing my own spotlight
to your noose.

I’ll just go, now,
and pick up a repeat prescription.
I’m talking to nobody.

You said it yourself.