Ridin' The Rails - A Story About Drug Abuse

Drug Abuse doesn't get much press these days what with Ecological, Financial and World Political news taking up much of the airtime (and thus people's minds) but that doesn't mean drug abuse doesn't still affect thousands of families across Canada and the rest of the world each and every single day.

The following original poem by G. Laidlaw is a true life prophetic obituary written about one single case of drug abuse and its impact...

© Copyright by the Author. All rights reserved. Used with permission

Ridin' The Rails

You were a happy married man

You and your wife made lots of plans

Now you're in the Devil's hands

Dying on his installment plan

And your wife don't understand

And your kids don't understand

This is the story of your life and other haunted tales.

You're ridin' the rails.

Feed the poor. End all war. Split the atom. Save the whales.

You're ridin' the rails.

Used to be handy

Until the nose candy

Took away your will to live

Ripped away your will to give

Stole away your power to love

Stripped your faith in God above

Killed your spirit ruined the man

While you sat there making plans.

Someone else screwed you over? Man it never fails.

You're ridin' the rails.

They might be invisible but you can see their trails.

You're ridin' the rails.

Little voices in your head

Fill you up with thoughts of dread

Scared of becoming paranoid

Humor gone easily annoyed

Conspiracy theories fill your mind

They're out to get you! All Mankind

Traps and monsters of every kind!

That's what you see when you're snowblind

Standing behind the curtain hiding from the mail.

You're ridin' the rails.

Zombie-fried paranoid and thirteen shades of pale.

You're ridin' the rails.

A mind unclear

Is easily upended

A mind in fear

Cannot be defended

If my rhyming's queer

No need to be offended

Do your own line here:

(Yes, the pun's intended)

Got a fridge full of food but your appetite's failed.

You're ridin' the rails.

You've lost a hundred pounds, a hundred years, since you last stepped on the scales.

You're ridin' the rails.

Priorities inverted

Authorities alerted

Responsibility averted

Morality perverted

Family deserted

Dark side asserted

With the Devil you flirted

To his powder converted

Forsake responsibility and all that it entails.

You're ridin' the rails.

Such intoxicating power! Truth beside it pales.

You're ridin' the rails.

Things have changed forever more

You're not the man you were before

All that matters is the score

Always wanting more and more

And more and more and more and more!

Frantic search through the garbage for a non-existent bale.

You're ridin' the rails.

Sitting in the dark chewing your fingernails.

You're ridin' the rails.

You burned a deadly hole

Through your nose, your brain, your soul

You're no longer whole

You think you have control

But the Devil holds the cards

And mirrors always break in shards...

Now shallow breathes are few

There's a smell of death on you

Got a brain full of snakes and skin full of snails.

You're ridin' the rails.

Bought yourself a ticket to the land of pointy tails.

You're ridin' the rails.

Don't even try

To brush the lie

From inside your eye

Don't even try

To kiss the sky

It's passed you by

Don't even try

To say you tried

Just lay down and die

Goodbye

8-Ball in the pipe burns like a coffin full of nails.

You're ridin' the rails.

M.E. will read your secrets in the blood of your entrails.

You're ridin' the rails.

You're ridin' the rails.

You're ridin' the rails.

- G. Laidlaw

Life is worth saving.

Canadian Assembly of Narcotics Anonymous

Addiction Intervention

Not all screams for help come from the mouth.