by Nick Gisburne
Another year of hell to face, to fight,
A final, sorry circuit round the sun.
She cracks a pristine pack of smokes to light
A length of what she cannot now outrun.
They’ll fix you, free, for anything but this,
A sickness still impossible to break.
Each transitory hit of easy bliss
Removes what it creates: the pain, the shake.
They conquered this addiction long ago,
But crushed the nascent science of the cure,
The hot and heady, hedonistic glow
Allowed to spread, to smoulder, to endure.
A tool to thin the herd, to keep control,
Has dug her grave, and throws her in the hole.
