Psalm of Heroin Addiction

Recently, I was talking to one of my kids about the "Stupid Kids File" I kept when they were growing up.  It was a collection of things I had seen while working in law offices where kids had been hurt because of a moment of pure stupidity.  It was my hope that by sharing these things with my children, that they would stop and think before they did something stupid that could cause them harm.

I should have saved that file for my grandchildren, but I didn't.  I tossed it long ago.  However, it seems there isn't a day that goes by that there isn't something in the news that my kids can save for the grandkids.

A couple of weeks ago, I was helping my brother in preparation for a move.  He was sorting through some old files and ran across something which he gave to me.  He worked in law enforcement for many years.  I don't remember whether he told me he was the officer on the scene, or whether it was another officer, but one day a young woman commit suicide.  The suicide note contained a poem.  He doesn't know whether she wrote the poem herself, or whether someone else wrote it and she just included it in her note.

While these things are not pleasant to read, maybe this will be a good thing for us all to keep in the "Stupid Kid File" to help educate those we love.

_____

PSALM OF HEROIN ADDICTION

King Heroin is my shepherd, I shall always want.
He maketh me to lie down in the gutters.
He leadeth me beside the troubled waters.
He destroyeth my soul.
He leadeth me in the paths of wickedness
For the effort's sake.

Yea, I shall walk through the valley of
Poverty and will fear all evil.
For thou, heroin, art with me.

Thy needle and capsule try to comfort me.
They strippest the table of groceries in
The presence of my family.
Thou robest my head of reason.
My cup of sorrow runneth over.

Surely heroin addiction shall stalk me
All the days of my life.
And I will dwell in the house of the damned forever and ever.
_____

On the back of the card on which this poem was written was the following suicide note.

Truly this is my psalm. I am a young woman, 20 years of age and for the past year and a half I have been wandering down the nightmare alley of the junkies. I wanted to quit taking dope and I tried, but I couldn't. Jail didn't cure me. Nor did hospitalization help me for long. The doctor told my family it would have been better and indeed kinder if the person that first got me hooked on dope to have taken a gun and blown my brains out, and I wish to God she had. My God how I wish to God she had. Now I will finish the job she started.