The Riddle of Addiction

Charlotte Reeves Bowman

This riddle,

this madness,

this sickness that....

makes children fear abandonment,

takes parents hostage,

leaves sores on the hearts of the inflicted.

The restlessness of

being nothing,

having nothing,

and only pretending that NOTHING is wrong....

this is the junkies anthem.

Love becomes another anxious fix.

Some people know too much about this riddle,

Know when it began,

how it evolved,

but they know absolutely nothing about the solution.

Some might long for it,

other's run from it,

but the human race as a whole tends to leave it alone.

Maybe some get courageous and try to catergorize it,

the holy rollers love to preach about it.....

trying to exorcise it with half truths about morality.

Problem is.....the riddle ain't a moral issue.

It's a beginning to an end,

a reminder that the human psyche has found a plastic answer for a wooden solution.