Adam Fout—Freelance Writer | Sci-Fi Writer | Querying Spring 2020

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A Poem About Modern Life — We Are Something More and Something Less

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Though this poem is not autobiographical, it is inspired by the experience of working in the modern age, of cubicles and time clocks, of wages and apathy.

Text: "We Are Something More and Something Less" — A black silhouette of a church on a green background. This is a poem about modern life and how it differs from what came before.

Of working until your eyes bleed and then working some more.

It is a poem about modern life and the life that came before, of what we have gained and what we have lost, and in it, I wonder if things are better, today, or if they are worse.

I do not find an answer.

“We Are Something More and Something Less” first appeared in Déraciné in Volume I under the title “We Are” — you can read the issue in its entirety here for free.

We Are Something More and Something Less — A Poem About Modern Life

I

Get to this point in my day

Where my mind goes

Blank

Where my thoughts run like

Crisco

Where everything is

Encased

Where my eyes won’t focus, won’t focus, won’t

Focus

Focus on the screen

And I hesitate over

The last few words

And my boss

Black tie in his hands

Says

“Push through it.”

“Get the hours.”

“Put a stamp on it and call it a day.”

“If you can.”

If you can …

I wonder if my

Ancestors

Got to this point in their day

Where their iron ran

Crimson

With the blood of

Holy men

If their thoughts moved like

Melted tallow from the firstlings

And their eyes wouldn’t

Quite

Focus

Focus on the crushed skulls of the

Monks they’d raped

I wonder if

When the violence was done

And they hesitated over

The last

Begging thrall

If their jarl told them

With entrails in his hands

“Push through it.”

“Throw him into the sea.”

“Put a stamp on it and call it a day.”

“If you can.”

A Poem About Addiction — Summer

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Summer is a poem about addiction, a poem about the viciousness of my disease, a poem about the insanity that sits only under the surface, that has not gone away.

That will never go away.

Poetry about addiction is something we need in a world that wants it, and us, to not exist. Every day, I am grateful that I live where I live, that I was able to receive treatment with persecution, that I don’t live in the Philippines, where people like me are executed in the streets, or in Russia, where ‘treatment’ means going cold turkey and seeing if I survive.

Summer is a poem about addiction, but it’s mostly a poem about the truth of what we experience. The greatest problem addicts face is the absolute negation of our experience by non-addicts.

They think we’re making it up, I guess.

We’re not.

This poem was originally published by Anti-Heroin Chic — you can read it here.

Summer — A Poem About Addiction

Summer — a poem

It’s summer.
It’s summer and I’m crushing up seafoam-green tri-dimensional highs and mixing them with tiny blue buttons and clear capsules that explode into a million microscopic oranges and I vacuum them up with my nose and.
I’m.
OFF.
And I’m angry at Purdue Pharma.
And I blame Purdue Pharma.
And I love Purdue Pharma.
And I’m slamming the microwave door and I’m melting my pills and my bones are creaking-cracking-CRAWLING out of my skin-skin-skin and I can feel the electricity sparking through my synapses GOD and I can feel the sickness rising and I can’t wait forty minutes then in the freezer twenty minutes then chop-chop-chop for five minutes then JESUS IS IT READY YET scratch it against a hose clamp a beautiful fine white powder and ahhhhh …
And.
And it’s perfect.
And I’M perfect.
And it doesn’t last it never lasts and I wake up and I don’t know it’s summer and I don’t care and I smell burning hair and dripping blood and everything is burning and I passed out I passed out I passed out again again again AND–
And it’s empty again and I’m empty again and the bottle is empty again and my throat is empty again and my nose is empty again and I’m freaking out Freaking Out FREAKING OUT FR–
And I’m sending a text and my fingers shake as they type “where you at” and sweat drip-drop-drips across the screen and my stomach is a psychopath mauling my guts clawing my throat bursting my esophagus tearing scraping gnawing biting BREAKING HACKING BURN–
And the highs streak off into infinities of never more never more never more than twenty minutes twenty minutes twenty minutes of.
“I’m good, MAN.”
But-but-but it’s supposed to be eight hours that’s what Purdue said that’s what the reps said the reps the reps with their crinkled yellow-binders-brown-fillers-red-excipients pasted like death across eyeless smiles stretched across their shit-stained noses their teeth white pearls stolen from the healthy eight hours eight hours CHRIST WHY DOES OXY ONLY LAST TWENTY MINUTES?!
And it’s summer.
And it’s summer and I don’t know it’s summer and I wake up and maybe it’s winter and maybe it’s spring and maybe it’s morning and maybe it’s night and maybe it’s I DON’T KNOW WHERE I AM I DON’T KNOW WHAT MONTH IT IS I DON’T–
And I’m driving, and I make a phone call, and the signal is.
Collected.
And the pings move the white men in the black suits because the bitch ratted on us she told she told she told She Told SHE TOLD I TOLD THAT IDIOT NOT TO TRUST HER NOT–
And they wait, but I’m riding ultra-sleek neon white Xanax bars with their beautiful precious gentle imprints pressed so lovingly into their dissolving faces by the men the women the people in the factory their pockets checked as they leave work their things brought in the morning in clear plastic bags no stealing no diverting we need to make a profit Profit PROFIT WE–
And I go right past the men. And my veins pulse with health while my nose pukes mucous dot-dot-dotted with fillers and specks of coke and inositol and grey-green paint and the veins are next the veins are next my nose won’t last forever it won’t–
It’s summer and I smell wet metal and burning again and I go for pancakes and I wake up and the EMTs are screaming at me and I’m screaming at me and my leg My Leg MY LEG MY FUCKING LEG MAN WHAT–
But the screams come from somewhere else and I say in my head for the tenth-hundredth-thousandth-millionth time never again Never Again NEVER AGAIN THIS IS THE LAST TIME THE LAST SCREW IT I’LL CALL MT I’LL–
And the men are there at last and there is nowhere to run and there is a gun to my head and they’re taking my drugs They’re Taking My Drugs TAKING please no please stop arrest me take me to jail to county to prison to anywhere ANYWHERE JUST PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY DRUGS PLEASE JUST BLOW MY HEAD OFF PLEASE DON’T PLEASE–
And when they take us I scream-scream-scream because I can feel the sickness boiling in my gut and I know they will not help me They Will Not Help Me THEY WILL NOT HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HEL–
And I wake up next to a dumpster again.
And I hear a phone ringing again.
And I know the pills are gone again.
And my gut wrenches at the thought the first thought the last thought the only thought: how-How-HOW will I get more get more I NEED more the hunt begins again again dammit again.
Not again.
Please not again.
And I sigh.
And I am so DAMN tired.
And I have.
No.
Choice.
Because it’s summer.
And it’s always summer.
And no matter how hard I try to escape the circle.
I always end at the beginning.

Read More on The Theme of Addiction

Addiction is a recurring theme in my writing — I can’t escape it, no matter how hard I try.

Read my story A Beautiful Death about one addicts struggle with her disease…

And her ultimate failure.

A Beautiful Death

The Children

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And the children came to us.

And they had questions.

They asked us uncomfortable things.

“Why are things this way?”

“Why must things be this way?”

“Will things be this way forever?”

“Who is responsible for this?”

What could we say to such things?

How could we explain?

“Things have always been this way.”

“Things must always be this way.”

“Things will always be this way.”

“It does not matter who is responsible—you must simply obey.”

And our lips trembled, and our hearts broke, and our minds split, and war became peace, and slavery became freedom, and ignorance became strength, and we wondered how it could be this way.

How could it be this way?

It was not supposed to be this way.

And the sun was black, and the light was darkness, and the children came with unending questions, and we covered our washcloths with chloroform, and methane, and VX, and Po-210, and CO2, and U-235, and we held it over the faces of the children.

And they died.

And we looked around, and we found that there were no children left, that the unceasing questions would cease, and we sighed, for we could finally be at peace.

And we trained cameras and microphones upon their bones, in case they awoke. And we let the machines carry on the work, for we wanted only to play.

And as the chemicals ate into our guts and the machines stabbed our backs, we joined the children, with smiles on our faces, and the certain knowledge that what we had done was right.

And after 100,000 years, the smiles still sit upon our bones, deep under the water, at the bottom of the poison sea. And not even the monstrosities that scrape their bellies across the ocean floor can see our smiles, for they are blind.

Perhaps, we were blind.