I’m addicted to that one thing
that everything that true thing
every moment I’m looking for another fix
wandering from here to there
trying to get just one more hit
you see I'm addicted to humanity
it’s just this power that overwhelms
this power that draws me in
I don’t know what it is
I can’t escape
humanity has me addicted
every time I kiss a girl
talk to a friend
hear the story of a stranger
I get just that much more addicted
and it’s just that much harder to break myself away
when a 75-year-old black man
tells me how he earned a vicious scar on his face
from a near-lynching in 1952
just outside Birmingham, Alabama
I get more addicted
his story
that human story
draws me in
when a mother of two
tells me what it was like
to explain her boys
that daddy is never coming home again
because semi-trucks don’t leave survivors
I get more addicted
her story
that human story
draws me in
when an elderly Jewish matriarch
tells me what was like
to grow up in a Polish concentration camp
to see her family get shot
then rolls up her sleeve to reveal a tattoo of
4
7
3
2
8
carved in the flesh
of her forearm
her story draws me
in every gesture
every feature
every wrinkle crease earned through survival
draws me in
like a moth to a flame,
like a comet to a star
I tried once
I tried to withdraw once
ever gone through human withdrawal?
I left the world for a day
and it almost killed me
I couldn’t function
I couldn’t act
I couldn’t breathe
I couldn’t walk
I couldn’t talk
do you know what it’s like
for a poet who cannot talk?
a poet who cannot talk
who cannot write
is dead
I had to come back
my addiction keeps me alive
do you know how easy is to get this stuff?
they don’t even sell it
they give it away
I can’t round a corner without getting another hit
and it’s killing me
if I could break his addiction
I could live forever
but what would my life be like without my humanity?
they say we’re all made to die, does that mean we’re all addicted?
are you?
are you?
are you?
I am
I my love my addiction
I want to experience the stories of everyone
because what differs us is just time and space
I want to know what other possibilities my soul had
before it chose this time
this space
this body to occupy
I want to know
I want more and more
I want to do the lines of every human face
I want to walk the features
memorize the names
live the stories that of every human who ever lived and I still want more
I want to feast with Gilgamesh
I want to besiege Troy
I want to drink with Alexander
I want to walk the halls of Camelot
I want to meditate with Buddha
I want to pray with Mohammed
I want to burn with Joan of Arc
I want to ride with Crazy Horse
I want to stand in the streets of Hiroshima with 140,000 other human beings
and feel the skies turn instantly
into the wrath of God
and want to sacrifice myself on Calvary
and become your Messiah
because God
if there is one
was just the first addict
I love being addicted
even if it’s going to kill me
I ask for more
I beg for more
I would sell my soul for more
but what makes this addiction my curse
is that I’m just one man
and I don’t have much time
Christopher Fox Graham © 2000
I guess I never posted this poem online before. Originally just a solo poem, I performed with Nick Fox and Chris Lane as a three-man group poem at the 2001 National Poetry Slam in Seattle.
