What Is Heroin

Heroin is a lifelong scar 

both on your chest 

and within it 

because your teenage daddy 

burned your infant skin 

while nodded out high 

and then left this life before 

you ever really got to know him. 

Heroin is the charred remains

of a shirt 

a bathroom floor 

a carpet 

a love 

a life 

a family 

and a marriage bed. 

Heroin is a drug that 

wanted you but 

couldn't quite sink 

its teeth in, and so it waits. 

Patiently. 

For the one thing 

most precious to you - your son. 

What can you do? 

That's heroin.