Addiction

You’re choking, fiercely spluttering

In depths of darkness, as the weight

Of all your failure presses down

And alone, you scream in the night

 

The surging fire of your heart

Creates a muddled stormy mess

Now all your self-control destroyed

You sink into mania’s clutch

 

Burning overtakes your senses

Leaving them numb, except for that

One swelling fantasy, which holds

You stranded in a raging sea

 

And you’re blinded, the world around

Drifting like a phantom vessel –

Floating you yearn for sight of land

Another touch, another dose

 

You hold your ailment to your breast

A bane from which you cannot part

Refusing to cease, put to rest

The tortured ghost that’s haunting you

 

Yet through it all you remain with

Perception frightfully astute

As you watch, waiting to make that

Definite plunge into the void

 

The place where all the shadows play

With glee they’ll guide you to the end

Whilst showing you all you once had

And that which now you never will

 

Image: Dalí, The Face of War