Roulette

Ask your doctor Relief may be closer than you think Rep at the office with lunch in a case Data in a deck and concern on his face Pain got numbered, the number got charted Chart became a metric, the metric got marketed Fifth vital sign, underline the phrase Undertreated suffering, prescribe for more days Every clean signature moved through a funnel From exam-room mercy to a quarterly number Quota wore a necktie, bonus had a region Every objection had a study and a reason Dependency sat buried in the finer print While the sales map lit up where the factories went dim Then the bodies made noise that the board could not mute Depositions, documents, a courtroom full of proof Settlement signed, public statement composed As though hunger reads the paperwork and knows when to close Roulette, roulette, pressed to look true One lets you wake up, one never lets you Same little logo, no way to choose The house never wagers The wager is you Roulette, roulette, same shade of blue One gets you through it, one buries you No label, no batch, no warning comes through The house never wagers The wager is you They cut the scripts, not the circuitry Pulled back supply, left the urgency Built the appetite, then closed the kitchen Called it prevention when the route went missing Demand does not vanish, it changes address Finds a cheaper chemist and a faster process Fentanyl entered as market correction Potent by the grain with efficient distribution No crop in a field, no season, no rain Small enough to ship, strong enough to replace Every slower product that had cost more to move Economics with a body count attached to the proof Officials said progress, fewer pills in the county Meanwhile every bag became chemical accounting A fraction too heavy, an uneven blend One person wakes up, one person does not again Roulette, roulette, pressed to look true One lets you wake up, one never lets you Same little logo, no way to choose The house never wagers The wager is you Roulette, roulette, same shade of blue One gets you through it, one buries you No label, no batch, no warning comes through The house never wagers The wager is you She hurt her back lifting boxes at work Prescription ran out, but the pain never heard Friend knew a friend with the same little thirty Score down the center, edges looked sturdy He was not chasing death, he was chasing a shift Trying to stand eight hours without feeling it rip She was not in an alley, he was not in a den They were buying what looked like the medicine again Basement press put a number on the face Could not measure the powder distributed through the shape Same color, same imprint, same familiar size But appearance is useless when chemistry lies That is the cruelty hidden in the copy It resembles the thing that once entered through a pharmacy One counterfeit Tuesday, one ordinary room One family learning what a milligram can do They taught the body what relief could mean Then criminalized where the body went to find it They poisoned the replacement Then blamed the dead for buying it Roulette, roulette, pressed to look true One lets you wake up, one never lets you Same little logo, no way to choose The house never wagers The wager is you Roulette, roulette, the supply line moved The settlement cleared, the bloodstream did not No label, no batch, no warning gets through The house never wagers The wager is you Relief may be closer than you think So is the funeral