Who needs drugs?

There hides a tree in the backyard,
Wrapped in brown and wrinkled history.
It stares at me with emotionless eyes,
Like the orb of a future teller,
Like a jar of void and darkness,
And ornamental stitched lips.

Its stares at me,
Standing in solace,
Like an ancient thought
Or a drunk mast.

Standing aloof from its roots,
On the suffocating tiles.
Standing still like time,
With unhealed wounds of separation
And a dozen bleeding branches,
Waiting for another Sunday and some new wounds.

When I sit under its borrowed shade,
smoking, pondering, talking continuously,
It drops a seed or two on the floor.
I look at the split open seeds and
feel amused at the cruelty of hope.

It hurts me to see him,
Standing there like an old poet
Or a child who walked too far from home.
Looking at the wicked faces,
Plotting and laughing under its leaves,
He screams ‘Is nothing sacred?’

I don’t have the heart to tell him,
That nothing is.
Except the cancerous cement.
That will devour it one cell at a time.
And one day devour all its thoughts and hope.
Should I ask him to run?
Or just play dead like I am?