WEEKLY FEATURE
One is Too Many
by Christina McCabe
JNCO jeans & bleach blond hair.
Later went in and out, in and out,
through treatment’s revolving door.
Clean one day and dead the next.
It could have been the needle, piercing
his heart, or what was in it
that did it.
I just saw her the other day
says my sister.
She looked good, it was nice
to catch up.
“Addiction is real,” says
her obituary.
He played “Stairway to Heaven”
in the middle school talent show.
Heartthrob.
He too was clean one day
and dead the next
leaving fatherless children,
one still unborn.
He ran with my brother
through the woods behind the high school,
over crisped leaves and streams
and away from the XC coaches,
their drills and their yells.
I saw him downtown last year,
says my brother, but I didn’t
say hi.
33, 30, 28, 21.
They join the list of names
I keep in my phone
to remember—
as if I could forget.
Tony, Misha, Grace
Faith, John, Ian
Buy a suit, they say
when you get sober.
You’ll be going to a lot of funerals.
How many more didn’t I
hear about, how many more
slipped through the cracks,
disappeared.
They say in the rooms that
some will die so that others
can live.
But band aids don’t cover
bullet holes.
