Thank you, I know that it's truly something you have to have been through to fully grasp. I wrote this a couple months ago, and even still suffer with it. Your details are essentially what I see happening when I've gone through longer periods of heavier use. Snorting oxycodone in high dosages would make me euphoric and numb

This is incredibly accurate, it gives me chills. I was actually on opiates for 3 years because of a spinal injury. It got to the point where I was snorting it daily and just "living" like a zombie. I remember I had a few nights of wondering if I would wake up because of how much I did that night.  I had dreams of floating, and eventually dreams of involuntarily floating and trying to hide it from the people around me, as my addiction got worse.  Then it got to the point where one day I looked in the mirror and it just absolutely terrified me. It felt like the person in the mirror was about to jump through and attack me. I quit that day and used weed to ween myself off of the opiates. I had to learn how to live again. Small things like taking out the garbage and showering, even though I was doing those things while I was on opiates. It was just my soul coming back to my body and relearning how to live in it. It's a fucked up experience. Anyway, upvote and saving this one. Kudos.

>did you interpret that I was symbolically talking about my drug addiction through love for a girl

More or less, yes.  I intuited that the drug was itself being personified and then romanticised as if it were a human women.  This is another poetic and literary device, called "anthropomorphism". 

If the intention was to create a sense of hostility between the "you" and the "me" characters, why doesn't the mood and tone of the rest of the piece further reflect that antagonism? This is the problem I have.  

If we are supposed to see this as romanticising the drug, then the tone and metaphor works but the catachresis doesn't.  If we are supposed to see this as feeling hostile towards the drug, then then the catachresis works, but the tone and romantic metaphor doesn't.   

The form should fit the poem, not actively fight against it.  

Cause I feel like if you did, then the "catachresis" would be well played. A drug compels an addict to use and pay.

I hope that you don't mind me jumping in with a comment here as well, I was definitely able to see the relationship you were trying to paint.

The antagonistic "vibe," if you will, did seem intentional to me. The analogy you were building, personifying drugs as the ex-lover was clear, and I think the feeling that you hate them for what they did, but you also can't shake that you still have feelings/cravings for them is apt. I love you, but I hate you. I get it.

*However!* The you you you you you you you may be building the antagonism, but it also feels *very much* like passing the blame. Which, oddly enough, goes along with the failed relationship metaphor, but not in a way that I think you wanted. It feels like not only are you not taking credit for your own faults and short comings and passing the blame onto the drug/girl, but that you aren't aware of the fact that you're doing it. It's very unflattering.

&nbsp;

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that this poem about addiction feels 

Well...it is antagonistic to be honest. The poem is about oxycodone, a strong opioid narcotic. It is addictive and desirable, but it made me mess up my life pretty bad early on so far... So I wrote a poem on it comparing it to a woman I can fall in love with and romanticize, but form an antithetical dichotomous relationship when I paired the two and hinted at the drug part when I mention the negative aspects of the drug in my life and the reader can easily tell that i'm actually symbolically talking about a drug addiction. "to pay" "you made me" it's a drug addiction. You literally feel like you need it. Believe me, it's unbearable to go without. But that's kind of what the poem's about. I read about what you're mentioning. I feel like there's a strong point, but I don't quite follow. I'm going to take another look, but did you interpret that I was symbolically talking about my drug addiction through love for a girl?

 reiteration of the phrase "you made me / you told me" is a particular literary and poetic device called ~~"catachresis"~~ "disclosure", which I have written about before on this subreddit.  Folks who are familiar with my "Poetry Primer" series may remember it, and that when used well it can create an insistent tone, or call attention to a particular word or phrase of special import. Shakespeare used catachresis in the line "to be or not to be/ that is the question".  

Unfortunately, this is very badly used catachresis here, in my opinion.  The repetition of "you" and "me" seems to me to set up an antagonistic, almost hostile relationship between the two.  This seems at odds with the apparent intended thematic content of the piece.  

I see a lot of attention to whether a line rhymes with another line in this piece, but little to no attention to whether that rhyme fits the tone or theme of the poem.  

There are also a lot of rhythmic problems with this piece.  It's all over the place

No, don't feel that way.  We're *all* amateurs here.   Your opinion is just as valid as mine.  

Hope you didn't see this as a comment on your analysis! I was just making excuses for not having as much of an in-depth critique as yourself

Just wanted to point out, I'm no "academic".  I'm just as much a poetry amateur as anyone else.  I do have a university education, but my degree is in a completely unrelated field.  

Thank you so much. Theme was more what I was going for, and I'm glad you got the picture I was painting

As a non-academic I tend to focus on theme more than form. I feel like you've done an excellent job of depicting just some of the issues (and frankly benefits) of drug use. As a reader I definitely empathised with the piece

Abandon you, how could I ever?

You made me feel powerful, and you made me feel clever

You made me feel confident, you made me have charisma

You made me believe that it’s just a social stigma

You take away pain from melancholic rains 

You made me feel free, a breaker of chains

You made me euphoric, no misery; no label

You made me feel like my life is finally stable

You take away aches, mistakes, and shakes

You told me God is real, he’s you and not fake.

You told me you’re with me, I just need to pay

You told me to take you, I can have you that way

You told me to use you, abuse you, to choose you

3 short years, I just need to lose you.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/4svrn3/drought/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/4sxz9x/what_its_like_to_be_profoundly_unmotivated/

Opiate (Tales of an Addict)