Please, Put The Pills Down
By Hank Lihn
Hey Bud,
Can we put the pills down, please? I know it’s not cool… everyone tells me to chill out, to let people make their own decisions. Except our friends, except with you — they all tell me someone has to tell you to put the pills down. But I’m scared to tell you anything, so I am asking: Please? It’s just that I’m tired of the whole “he didn’t wake up” thing. You know, where someone mixed an opiate with a benzo, or depression medication, or sleeping pills, or speed, and washes it down with a martini, and they don’t wake up. Whatever is fun is good, right? We are young and nothing can hurt us. It must have been the olives. Let’s blame it on the olives.
Remember the summer after high school? We did a lot of drugs that summer, a pile of drugs. But remember we always put them down, right? We put them down before it got too heavy. Or did we?
We’ve seen it before. I can’t remember who was the first, because we’ve seen it so many times since. But right now I see you.
We took them for fun. We took them to study. It was normal, doctors said it was OK and so did our parents. (8mg of klonopin, 20mg time-released adderall, oxycontin post-wisdom-teeth).
But now, years later, you take them just to be functional, to get up, to go to sleep, sometimes up the nose, getting high on your days off. A little cocaine — Wait — A lot. You disappear for days. You can’t see what it does to you, and your doctors sure as shit don’t know about every joint, sniff, whiff, purple moon rock or bottle of red wine that is taxing your organs. They are part of the cycle too.
They made a movie about this story. Remember how I had to dip from NOLA because my girl’s best friend died? They spent two days trying to figure out why. I told you about the film they made about it, right? Like Kids all over again. The Ambien was the kicker — the killer in the cocktail. They call it “the writing on the wall” because it’s right there for us to read. And I — we — can’t even look you in the eye and tell you you have a problem.
But you’re not alone. We’re all addicted something. We don’t need to feed on toxic foods, smoke cigarettes for the look, push masochism into our veins to feel alive. We don’t need the pills. We can make small choices everyday. We can make little stands to grow and live.
Let’s choose together.
Let’s watch little men preach greatness on YouTube. Let’s eat fresh food. Let’s dance. Let’s turn our faces towards the sun, and stop wallowing in the shade. So much more of life is lighted. Let’s sing. I’ll do opera if it makes you laugh. Let’s force a smile just to watch it grow.
Remember your first kiss? Me too. Let’s hit the strip club just to make the ladies feel like people and the boobs feel like high school. Drive east. When was the last time you embarrassed yourself just for fun? Let’s do that twice. Let’s go way too far in the best way possible — obviously pants are optional.
Let’s dress exclusively in Happy Socks. Let’s chase fireflies because they even manage to live in Tompkins Square Park. Let’s write something that no one will read, just because we know one person who would love to see it. Try a passion, just once more, just to be screaming at the top of our lungs. Let’s run down a hill until our legs get the South African “speed wobble.” Let’s choose motion.
Let’s get high off the first breath of morning and the last sigh at night. Let’s win something. I’ll watch you — I saw you. I remember you. You were great. Let’s watch the sunset and try to chase it to the horizon. Let’s get you to job, marriage, and kids; let’s spend the next 50 years growing up and old. Here we go.
Let’s not go one last time because whenever I think about this being the last time, about you not waking up, I can’t stop myself from crying. Please. Put the pills down.