Note: This poem was submitted by a local high school student as part of the Teen CHARGE 2023 Red Ribbon Week Writing Contest. It was selected as the Grand Prize Winner for her school and the overall contest. The prompt given was “The best me is drug-free!” See an author statement below!

There is something terribly charming in your demeanor, and maybe
it’s the substance, or those sluggish, dancing shadows                            
upon your face, or the incessant, pulsing music.
Likely, it’s some grand intertwining of the three.
Purity, misery, decay -- all fluids strands of the same braid,
attached sternly to the fragile vitality of your wit.
And you’re not stupid -- no, you’re acutely aware of
The colossal significance of this endeavor.
You’re calculated. You’ve thought it out:                                                                                                                 “I’ll stop tomorrow, when the weather’s nice.
It’d be a shame to waste tonight. It’s dark, and it’s miserable,
and it’s cold, and I just wish to be warm again.”
You’re organized. You catalog these bouts of self destruction like a grocery list:
Apples, milk, eggs, toilet paper, a heavy, aching blow to the head.
Some days, it feels like justice. Today it is just routine.
You worry, too. You’re sick, and you’re afraid
you’ll go your whole life without saying it out loud.
You make headway. You seek to cure these ailments, but
your Ouroboros efforts are futile. You seek advice from the Righteous Man,
who lacks consolation entirely: “Stop it, please, for me?”
Perhaps you are a stranger in a stolen vessel,
guilty not of theft but of self-detestation.
Life is an unbounded succession of movements against the current;
You’re shivering, sure, but you won’t drown.
It’s cold, and it’s raining, and
there’s a hawk ahead, and the riptide is unabating --
but in the midst of this flourishing terror, you are spit hastily from the mouth of the harbor.
And suddenly, marvelously, you are struck by
the primitive beginnings of a grotesque transformation.
You are consumed by a vast appreciation -- some humble recognition of
the undeniable, blooming spirit of your creation.
You’re dry now, clear-headed and whole -- realizing only presently the
affliction you’ve gained and subsequently lost, and
the divine struggle that inevitably awaits you.
Impossibly, remarkably, you are grateful to have felt it at all.

-Kiri, age 17

Author Statement: By sharing this poem, I wish to instill hope in those that may be struggling — whether that struggle be related directly to the prompt or not. The writing itself is, of course, open to interpretation — but I hope each reader is able to derive from it a positive message!