(no subject)
Lauren Jolly was one month and two days past her 17th birthday.
Fentanyl ,
meant for cancer patients to cure the pain of a dying body.
Instead,
1,022 dead bodies fell into coffins.
Fell with needles in their arms,
tourniquets
still tied tightly like seat-belts on the world.
They all died frozen:
mid
breath
mid
life.
a trucker visiting his niece,
arms slumped over the steering wheel.
a man with his head in a trash can.
a grandmother at her kitchen table.
a logger crashing his truck into a tree.
They died in bathrooms
underwear around their ankles
their lives snuffed out mid-flush.
273 died before the county sounded the alarm.
we talked about it in our classes
it was cut with heroin
the teachers pleaded
to (get it somewhere else) wait
anything
Lauren
wasn't in school, suspended for drugs
she fell for a handsome senior
Zack
had suddenly gotten skinny and cute
they spent every minute together
even their lunches
where they raced to the city
and got busted on the way back
heroin.
Zack
went to jail but
Lauren
had told the cops everything
and they sent her to get well
and they never followed up
but she did.
In 30 days she was back
no flashing blue lights
only Lauren in her light blue Chrysler .
She was a regular there
even doing dishes with a hooker named:
Debra ,
a mother of three
proud she can still wear revealing shirts at work
“No tracks when you shoot up in your ankle.”
Rushing up the stairs to see
Lauren in a tub of ice
Deb caries her
in plain white underwear
soaking wet
onto the kitchen table
pump,pump
breath
pump, pump
breath
Suddenly everyone is frantic, dead suburban girl means suburban cops, she needs dry clothes NOW they dress her throw her in her car tell Deb to leave her on eight mile, can't have cops here just can't, she steps on the gas.
They give her 30 dollars for cab fair, a free hit if she walks.
Driving she makes a left turn onto Woodward
the wrong way
at Jefferson she places her in the arms of the automatic doors
of St. John's hospital: too far to walk.
She just couldn't dump her like trash.
They stick an iv in her neck
Lauren Jolly was one month and two days past her 17th birthday.