Checking you out checking out
Maximum packs of pills
Some cold you got there, lady

Bags of refined crystals for me
Socially acceptable RDA implosion
Dying slow, but dying too

You don’t smile, you don’t have one
Fingers to face, worrying at it
Eyes here, there, at me, don’t see

I tug my shirt over my tell
Breathing hard from standing still
Hungry to hate, settling for you

I’ll go straight to the needle
Finger sticks to pay a different piper
Both buying to use ourselves up

I used to self-medicate depression with sugar. I had a high-stress career and a lifetime of bad habits behind me, and I’d buy a couple of candy bars on the way home from work just to deal with the anxiety.

At one of my stops, I ran across a couple, both buying four boxes of generic Sudafed. Not rocket science to figure that out. With age I find greater compassion, and I realize that we all cope somehow.

I’ve broken the candy habit, for the most part, and I’m not on my way to the DIABEETUS.  The depression is mostly mild and comes and goes.  I still want a bag of candy, I just don’t buy one.  I hope those folks are in a similar place.