The Heavy Exit The standard issue neon picture buzzed with low, electric hum, A pale and sickly violet glow where tired shadows come. Down in the basement center, where the drywall starts to peel, Joe sat back in the shadow, where the silence made it real. His hands rested on his knees, broad-knuckled, rough, and wide— Hands that carried quiet weight and decades locked inside. Ten years ago, those very hands were weighing out the weight, On tiny digital scales inside a trailer’s rusted gate. He ran the county’s hardest line, the cook, the plug, the source, Steering a persistent wreck along a downhill course. He was the man who held the key, yet chained himself to burn, His own most desperate customer, with nowhere left to turn. The chemical took everything—it stripped his teeth away, It stole his marriage, wrecked his sleep, and turned his dark to day. It traded away five long years behind a cold steel door, Yet prison walls had never washed the poison from his floor. It wasn't iron bars or guards that made his spirit break, It was a smudge-streaked glass divide that caused his heart to ache. The afternoon his daughter stopped her visits to the room, He caught his own reflection in that pane of frosted gloom. He saw a ghost with hollow eyes, skin stretched like parchment paper, A hollow shell of who he was, dissolved in toxic vapor. He barely recognized the face that stared back through the glass— And in that quiet, shattered place, he swore to let it pass. Now three years clean, he doesn't run from ghost or stain or shame, He walks right toward the broken ones who whisper through the flame. When called upon, the ancient floorboards creak beneath his stride, He steps into the ring of chairs, with nothing left to hide. A dozen faces look to him: some desperate, some cold, A few half-nodding off in fits as withdrawal takes its hold. In every single shattered state that filled the circle’s light, Joe knew the terror, strain, and ache—he’d lived them in the night. "My name is Joe," his gravel voice ran heavy, thick, and deep, With gravel scraped from rocky roads he never meant to keep. "A lot of you in here tonight might know my face from back, Though not in rooms with plastic cups or coffee on a rack. Some used to buy from me," he said, and let the sentence land. A quiet shift went through the air, a drop you could command. A young man in a faded hoodie lifted up his eyes, Bloodshot and raw, with guarded shock and flickering surprise. "I spent eight years," Joe paced the front, beneath the faded board, "Convincing my own twisted mind I was a business lord. I told myself they’d buy somewhere, it might as well be me— But I was selling poison, friends, and drinking it for free. Meth doesn't just take bank accounts, your teeth, your job, your home— It strips your soul off piece by piece until you walk alone. It hollows out your empathy until you just don't care Who bleeds or breaks or starves to death, as long as you are there." He reached inside his faded coat, pulled out a plastic frame, A laminated picture carrying a quiet name. A smiling girl with sunlit hair, holding a soccer ball— "This is my daughter, Arabella," Joe spoke soft and small. "I missed her eighth, her ninth, her tenth, her eleventh year of life, Because I was in a cage or chasing madness with a knife. Shut in a darkened, quiet room with heavy blinds pulled tight, Hiding from the daylight while I fought a phantom fight. When you're on meth, you feel so fast, invincible and tall, While time moves right on past your face and leaves you with the wall. It leaves you with an empty bag, a house of broken vows, And hollow years you can't reclaim, no matter what you allow." He stopped his stride and looked straight down into the hoodie's gaze, Meeting the young man’s trembling eye through all the fog and haze. "I can't undo the bitter harm, the lives I helped to wreck, I can't recall the toxic batches sold upon a deck. But I can stand here in this light as proof you still can choose— The drug does not get final say in what you win or lose. It feels impossible right now, the panic and the ache, The paranoia, deep despair, the shivering cold awake. But there is solid ground below if you decide to stop— You do not have to sink forever down from off the top." Joe put the picture in his coat, leaned back against the wood. "I’m not here preaching from a hill or acting pure and good. I’m here because I know the door that leads out of this room— It’s heavy, thick, and hard to push through all the fog and gloom. It takes every ounce of muscle that your soul can find inside, But it is real, and it stays open, wide and clear and wide. And if you want to walk on through, I’m staying right back here, To help you take that very first step out into the clear." The meeting ended slowly as the cold light faded out, The circle cleared, the folding chairs were stacked around about. Joe stood beside the coffee urn, folding the paper cups, When on the floor a shadow fell where quiet courage dups. It was the young man in the hoodie, head held low and bent, Wringing his hands together where his heavy strength was spent. "Hey, Joe," the young man muttered low, his voice a ragged thread, "You really think... a guy like me... can change the road ahead? After everything I’ve ruined? After everything I’ve done?" Joe laid a heavy, steady hand beneath the basement sun— A calloused hand that once made poison, now extended wide, To anchor down another soul against the pulling tide. He looked the young man in the eyes, unblinking, firm, and true: "If a dealer who lost his mind, his family, and his view Can pull himself out from the glass and learn to live again... Then so can you. Take a breath. Let's get to work, my friend." Verse 1] Under the neon picture’s sickly purple hum, Joe sat in basement shadows where the broken come. With broad, rough hands that once weighed out the poison supply— The county’s main cook, trapped in his own supply-side lie. The drug took his teeth, his marriage, five years locked in a cell, Yet prison wasn't what broke his spirit in that hell. [Chorus] The door out of this room is heavy Heavy, thick, and dark It takes every ounce of soul But it holds a spark Heavy exit, heavy exit If you want to walk on through [Verse 2] It was his daughter’s missed visits, the frosted glass reflection That showed a hollow ghost stripped of all connection. There, in that quiet pane, he swore to break the strain. Now three years clean, he steps into the circle's light, Addressing twelve raw souls fighting through the night. My name is Joe, his gravel voice ran deep, [Chorus] The door out of this room is heavy Heavy, thick, and dark It takes every ounce of soul But it holds a spark Heavy exit, heavy exit If you want to walk on through [Verse 3] Some used to buy from me, back before I learned to weep. A young man in a faded hoodie raised a bloodshot eye. Joe paced the floor. I told myself a business lie, Selling poison while drinking it for free— It hollows out your soul until you cease to be. He pulled a photo out: a girl with sunlit hair. My daughter, Arabella. I missed four years right there (spoken extro) The standard issue neon picture buzzed with low, electric hum, A pale and sickly violet glow where tired shadows come. Down in the basement center, where the drywall starts to peel, Joe sat back in the shadow, where the silence made it real. His hands rested on his knees, broad-knuckled, rough, and wide— Hands that carrie
