I always expected to outlive you
You aren't afraid to take risks
The kind of life you've led
Makes me shiver and wince
And I'm never quite sure what it's done
To your head
You're extreme
And you frightened me
More than once, and I didn't care
About you that much, just
An occasionally fun person to
Hang out with, and a friend
Of a friend
And I'd heard the rumours
But I didn't believe
Because I knew,
Dammit, I *knew*
That you were really smarter
Than that,
Smarter than that...
You'd tried everything, I guess
Everything wasn't enough anymore
And you couldn't resist
Just once
One try
Just once
And now your "friends"
Keep you supplied
And you told
My sister/your sister
That you'd cut back
And only shoot up
On the weekends
I didn't want to believe
My sister/your sister
When she
Told me the truth
Saw the evidence
Heard it from you
But it only takes once
Just once
All the cliches are true
You're not an addict
You can stop anytime you want
You haven't sold much of your stuff
You trust your dealer
You always use clean needles
You're cutting back
It doesn't control your life
But it does,
It does
You've caught
A terminal disease
Some people beat the odds, yeah
Some people win the lottery too
And as somebody said,
"You don't do that shit
For life expectancy, you know?"
And I know you, I know how you try
To block out the pain
To escape, and separate
Yourself from the world
And this works, doesn't it?
Doesn't it?
So the distancing starts
As I begin to imagine you
In the past tense, because
Someday we'll find you
Lying on the floor
With a needle in your arm
And you'll never play
The guitar again
Never play the guitar again,
Never again
Notes: He's beating the odds. Sometimes he surprises me with how smart and caring he can be. I'm glad to find that he's likely to survive.