Parent of an Addict

With my head down

Pain weighs upon my heart

Every time you come around

I'm broken apart

I've loved you since you opened your eyes

When I held you in my hands

Some nights I wonder if your still alive

I'm trying to do the best that I can

Your a shadow of the child I raised

Oblivious to the fact that I know

I have nightmares standing at your grave

While I watch you physically die slow

Everyone tells me I need to give you tough love

Turn my back and stop being your crutch

I help enable your abuse on drugs

By always trying to do too much

Nodding off in the middle of conversations

Locking yourself in the bathroom for hours

Taking off after one day as a detox patient

Finding your needles left behind in the shower

This madness needs to stop

You've become a stranger to me

Your either gonna be locked in a box

Or in danger of ending in the cemetery

I don't want to lose you

But your spiraling lower and lower

Its a decision I can't force you to do

I just want you to get sober

Those so called friends you defend

Only care about themselves

They will take off on you in the end

If you overdosed and needed some help

I've had dreams of you in a bath tub

Left behind to die

A bad combination of drugs

Why do you have to get high?

I remember you as an innocent kid

Now I dread the nights your not home

This is no way for you to live

It breaks my heart thinking about you when I'm alone

You look like death

With black pockets below your eye sockets

Everybody knows your a mess

And its killing me I can't do a thing to stop it

Sleeping in the same clothes as yesterday

Sprawled out on the couch

It hurts in the worst way

I'd rather you be high in my house

At least then I would know where you are

And I can be there to help you

This is so hard

Watching the transformation your going through

I know I'll wake up and something will be missing

Cash, lab top or maybe my check book

I don't have the heart to send you to prison

My baby, your not cut out to be a crook

Anxiety kicks in every time my phone rings

Wondering if this will be that unwanted call

A parent of an addict with the depression that brings

Carrying the burden that I let my child fall

Please just find the courage to get into recovery

I don't want your fate to be like so many others

Losing you would be the death of me

And I know you don't want to do that to me and your mother

Sitting up on another restless night

Hoping for a miracle

Someone please protect my kids life

The love for my child is unconditional

By Matt Ganem