Let Me Tell You

Let me tell you just what I know, and how I learned first hand that it would’ve been best if I just said no.
But a hard head makes a soft ass, my father once said. Maybe I should’ve paid more attention to the voices, even the ones in my head.
Many of my ways were learned as a child, and the secrets of those days were kept hushed, to put it quite mild.
But some things remain in your heart, growing stronger with time and the secrets unspoken later become just a few of many, many a crime.
Even now I wonder if those who were meant to protect understand what they’ve done, or do they give an excuse when for me there are none?
Let me tell you about the life I’ve lead and of the many things I’ve both done and said, ’cause drugs take you places you swore you’d never go while the guilt and shame I pray others will never feel or know, sooner or later the pain you cause those you love is of no ones fault but your own and you wonder why the path you’ve taken was the one you were shown.
While the one thing you know is, with every wrong you wanted to do right, but with every failure you must continue your fight.
Let me tell you about every prayer, and not only your own, and God knows I never would’ve trusted those demons had I only known.

by Lonnie S. Artigue