Unseen waves of pain arrive

as we age. Medicine cabinets

become the place to go when

we want a little peace and pray

that the pain will cease.

Open the door and see so many medicine

bottles sitting there. Some to help sleep arrive

and others to stop the ongoing harm that makes

one want to see the light at the end of the tunnel

when we’re about to die.

Take that pill often enough and

every afternoon you’ll have to

take another to counteract its effects,

and soon you’ll need another to combat

its consequences too.

Like a polluted river, kidneys and liver slowly

corrode, until you’re taking pills for them too.

The longer you’re alive and want to survive,

the more important your medicine cabinet

becomes.

Massages and hot tubs temporarily relieves

our aches stemming from our mistakes, but

we can’t survive and stay alive without fulfilling

our pharmacological needs that doctors insist

are the only way to stay that way.

Then one day, the legislature in your state

has an epiphany and declares Marijuana

can be used for pain because after all, it’s

only grain. Hesitant to try and not believing

it could possibly reduce any agony, you buy

a few strains to see.

Eat it, smoke it, or do both, you don’t know,

which to do, but try one or the other and after

sleeping all night, you awake and feel like leaping

from your bed, because the bleeping pain that’s been

with you for years and years has gone missing and you

wonder why it has taken all these years to legalize a plant

put on Earth to relieve some of our pain.