Once worshipped, now a no-show.
As my body yearned for more amphetamine,
how will I ever win sober
was the the question I had failed to ask.
But like mountains over time amphetamine flattened.
Now I’m faced with early retirement.

Betrayed by what has fueled me,
even water can come to poison;
though I’m OK —
it’s counterintuitive to keep drinking water,
so I won’t.
And I didn’t.
Magnesium, inositol, zinc, choline, yes,
(as I pray for a sabbatical and a return to form,)
but no amphetamine.

As driftwood beneath a merciless sun,
scorched afloat on my back in a body of pain,
oozing magnesium citrate like puss from my wound,
I must remember to preserve confidence:
no matter how fickle the stream becomes,
I cannot let the current overtake me.
“Today is not tomorrow.”

My theory has evolved.
Defeat tastes evanescent;
hope, in this case, remembers the past.
With a half written novel staring me down in the present.

With only a cigarette now for the torch I carry,
the memory of words evincing on a white page on a computer screen
amidst the sound of Britney Spears and the taste of Arnold Palmer in my mouth
is something I’ll hold dear to my heart.