I'm So Lucky I Got Clean Before They Invented Fentanyl

It took me years before I did the math
And saw the downsides of a vein collapse
Now I drink green tea and wag my finger lame
And warn fresh ears falling deaf about doing cocaine

Drugs these days are made by geniuses with no wit or charm
Names with no music designed to cause spiritual harm
Sold by art students to fund their next dropshipping start-up
The art's not made by artists, just flipped to make a buck
And in the great halls of power they legislate rights away
The cracks to eek out ourselves are sealed much to our dismay
To reach other modes of thinking we take substances that numb
But use one grain too many and you'll end up dead, considered scum

So where does that leave me, washed up with a brain
No substances to escape from the never ending display
Of avarice-laced aspirations that forever leave me crushed
That cause stronger men to retreat into the arms of angel dust
My friends all fall like dominos as their money slowly fades
The rent, the food, the bills the everything that they cannot pay
The violence caused by desperation of being in the red
The hunger pangs rippling through the houses which are never fed

The wind that blows plastic bags across neighbourhoods I know
The tattered clothes beneath bridges and shattered needles in alcoves
The blisters on the fingers always tending to the stoves
The growing markets only available to those that work from home
The pain I feel in abstentia for distant foreign lands
The contentment felt by others which my ego cannot stand
The dragging monotone drawl of my internal dialogue
The narcissism I embrace when I record these words in analogue

In the last chest compression I manage before my heart finally gives out
The cliche comes true, and my life is replayed with no doubts
Every test I studied for, and every lover for whom I pined
Flashes between moments which are punctuated by the divine
In and out of blackness the television sky finally begins to drain
The final hit of ecstasy numbs all fear that sits within my brain
The years I spent studying, dreaming, yearning, reaching for another
Are all for naught, as the life I prepared for bleeds into the gutter