Casualties of War

Abused children are so hungry for relief
from their pain of trauma and abandonment
they are prime candidates for drug addiction,
illness and emotional disorders.
That insatiable craving for nurturing and security
doesn’t go away when they reach adulthood
and they have more access to addictive behaviors.

So America’s war on drugs is a war waged against
people who were abused as children.
Its battlefield strategy is to punish those people
for being abused by turning them into felons
and incarcerating them for long periods
in prisons where they are likely to be abused.
Like most wars, there are heavy casualties.