The Lies of a Junkie

The Lies of a Junkie

In the crumbling tenement, life’s a nightshade sonnet,

Eddie walks like a shadow under streetlights

with the jittery grace of a three-time loser,

eyes like overcooked eggs, pupils screaming disrepair,

he spins yarns like webs, silky and ensnaring.

“I was just out,” he says, two fingers twitching,

a gash of a smile slick with bad intentions.

Rent’s overdue, pockets clinking with pennies,

but he'd swear he sold poetry at the corner bodega,

Poe’s ghost on a whiskey bender, all smoky bullshit and baubles.

His eyes drip contemptuous trust,

as he says, “I got a job, lucky break, friend of a friend!”

His scabs blossom under streetlight scrutiny,

one hundred-dollar bill, dampened by sweat and anticipation,

like the promise of a turned needle before it bites.

He misses his shift, boss calls, voicemail, static.

“Got mugged, man. Some sonsabitch took my watch.”

That same watch ticking in his locked desk drawer,

beside a crucible of spoons blackened by borrowed dreams

and a pack of cigarettes, kissed by a curse to die young.

Morning crawls like a blind worm through the shutters,

Eddie’s lips painted with incomprehension,

as he pawns affection for another dim shot.

“But you said you quit,” they echo, voices cracked,

still believing in myths, toilet-paper gods.

At midnight's unholy hour, he shoots poetry in veins,

Street hustlers  tapping on his ceiling,

Talking rats growling from the closet shadows,

whispering, “You’d lie to heaven's gatekeepers, kid,

just to feel a moment of that old, God-forsaken release.”

Friends turn to ghosts of ghosts, fading into indifference,

each lied to, hammered hearts and cracked skulls,

travelers on his winding road to nowhere.

Eddie walks on, lies sewn into his seams,

heroin’s bard, strumming discord in the junkie choir,

each hit a sad, stuttering sonnet.