Tracks Magazine Article Banners Big (885 × 318 px) (2)

Commitment To The Cause

A poem by Alix Johnstone

I can’t believe what I’m saying. But I think I’m nearly done. Over 30 years of using but it was all such bloody fun. In and out of psych wards. Handcuffs and the rest. Sleeping rough out on the streets or in the watchhouse was the best. I tried my very hardest. To be committed to my cause, walking blindly through my psychosis, my reality, not yours. With the shadow people calling me and pulling out my hair, I just keep on screaming, but this ain’t fucking fair. My delusions getting stronger, and hallucinations getting worse the medication isn’t working and I’m sure that I’m cursed. Rational kind of thinking just put me in my place for all my very best efforts I would simply laugh at my disgrace. 

I had a crack at getting better, soon failed at that as well. It seems the only thing I’m good at is getting locked up in a cell. Those silly fucking coppas let me out yet once again. Only to escort me back to the psych ward with my friends. Now, you probably couldn’t see them but I know that they were there. Those tricky little bastards that just love to pull my hair. As I meander through my drifting thoughts, pushing common sense aside, I tried again to kick the demons out, but I realised I was fried. I can’t explain the luck of my existence in this world. It seems as though my straight line is nothing but a curl. A twisted type of reason. A broken kind of glass. One that’s full of alcohol and bites me on the ass. 

Now when I say I think I’m lucky to have lived through all this crap. I still believe that’s true. But I couldn’t have done it without my crack. Then there is GHB to follow and a line of coke or two. That started off a cocktail that led me back to you know who! Get picked up by complete strangers that soon become my friends. Then kept on mixing everything until it was like I had the bends. Busted my brains and knuckles fighting all that was in my way. Then lost my mind completely along with the month, the year and the day. 

Maybe I’m still not over it, not convinced of a better life the seventeen I’ve already lived, comprised of mostly strife. But here I go on my journey from bus to train to boat. Cause I know when I fall off again, it hurts less just to float. Must I slide back to reality, into a life I’ve always condemned, a straight an awkward being until the bitter end. I know when this ride started that my drinking led to shots, the shots then led to chaos, and for the rest, I was just off chops!!!