Hillbilly Elegy

because of some drug. So I shouldn’t
have been surprised or all that bothered,
but “heroin” just has a certain ring to it;
it’s like the Kentucky Derby of drugs.
When I learned of Mom’s newest
substance of choice, I felt a cloud
hanging over me for weeks. Maybe I had
finally lost all hope for her.
The emotion Mom inspired then was
not hatred, or love, or rage, but fear.
Fear for her safety. Fear for Lindsay
having to deal yet again with Mom’s
problems while I lived hundreds of
miles away. Fear most of all that I hadn’t
escaped a goddamned thing. Months
away from graduating from Yale Law, I
should have felt on top of the world.