Poem by Darnell Robinson

Trickin’

(PART II)

Now I am on this journey. Now I am on this trip. I am still using drugs…. I still feel like sh-t. I thought this life would make a difference…. I thought I’d feel the change…. I’m caught up in this trickin’ and now I’m so ashamed.

Now I’m feeling undernourished, I think I’m getting sick. I feel so goddamn tired. I’m feeling so damn ick. Now I get my test results—what a shock, what a pain. I thought I was living large. Now I’m feeling slain.

Now I feel like dying. I see I’m still alive. Even though I don’t want to live, I think I will survive.

Now I seek my purpose. I want to know my “counts.” I take myself to the doctor, but oftentimes I bounce.

Now it’s time for me to learn about this illness and what it’s doing to me. I know now that I feel really good, as healthy as can be. Will this illness kill me? I’ll have to wait and see.

Now I see my lab reports. Now I see some light. As I learn about this thing, I think I have a fi ght. An ounce of love, an ounce of hope, an ounce of life to share.

But fi rst let me get off these drugs, so that my thinking clears…

Off to treatment.

Darnell Robinson

(To be continued….) Darnell Robinson