He Said He Would Take Care of Me
He said he would take care of me.
I am his younger third cousin, so I believed him.
He was an Elvis wanta-be.
I was fourteen, so I thought he was an always-was.
He did not look after me like he said.
It was the late sixties.
I followed him to Europe, because my mother did not care.
Try this, he would say. Try that.
I tried everything. Thought I was invincible.
Pills and booze at first. They did not do it after a while.
I got hooked on some really hard stuff.
Then I was out of money, but the only thing that mattered was being high.
I spent years not caring where I woke up,
In and out of lah lah land.
I doubt it I would recognize the people I was with.
I doubt they would recognize me.
Life was a fog for about eight years.
Some do-gooder took me under their wing a couple of times.
This was endearing for the first few hours.
Then it was annoying.
I gladly died of a drug overdose when I was twenty-two.
It was an easy death.
I slipped into it as easily as I slipped into everything else.
Copyright © Caren Krutsinger | Year Posted 2020
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