Detox
No more water hosing or truncheons beaten on bare feet,
no nightsticks cracking skulls on Bowery streets.
No cold water straitjackets or rubber padded rooms,
no laudanum doses sweeping minds like a broom.
Now its pretentious centers deluxe
brazenly charging big bucks
for twenty-eight days of schmoozing
to turn off the boozing,
and swallowing mega-vitamin pills
to ward off the chills,
or sit in circles with stories to tell
from like-minded survivors of hell.
More humane we're trying to be
even offering treatment for free
but it is still a choice at any cost.
To choose a sober life or, to an early death be lost.
Copyright © Sue Mason | Year Posted 2009
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