Paying For Attention (Pt 1)

That amphetamine scourge
of my first job – Adderall
(spelled “A-D-D – Er, All…”)
returned last week
in the form of five
20-milligram pills, and only one-half
tablet is left;

I took the rest.
& I may now finish the task.

Well, what do you have to say for yourself?
Nothing.

That empty, astonished, brilliant
comb of the old years – instant brain prep;
irradiant mental focus – has been exposed
for what it was: a distraction

robbing the mind of some fuel
to go on.

(Isn’t it a joy,
a tilting, lilting, scarified horror
to know that I don’t need this stuff?
Yes.)

Brain pumped in so many directions
by innumerable medicines
of infant craze.

(And my father's animus says:
Study the books you care to. Study the people
you barely know & surely grow
into what you’ve become
never knowing
you got there on your own. You made this bed
and the other things just got in the way. You
consulted the mess instead of the messiness;
consulted the cabinet instead of the shoe closet
wherein you’ll find some soles to strap on
to be out & about, where you belong.)