RNDSP 2: Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh (1993)

You hurt yourself when you fix the stuff but you carry it on
You hurt others when you fix the stuff but you carry it on
The reasons? There are no reasons.
Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?
Take the best orgasm. Multiply it by twenty.
It’s still fucking miles off the pace.
And it’s all in the hand of Mother Superior.
’Tho she knows not the thousand junk dilemmas
And the kick lasts less than the minutes it takes to shit.

When I hit rock bottom, all I need is the last hit
I can go for rehab
I can go with methadone
I can lock myself up in a hotel room
I can tolerate the wankers
But all I need is one single shot.

Morphine, diamorphine, buprenorphine
Nalbuphine, pethidine, pentazocine
Cyclozine, codeine, temazepam
Nitrazepam, phenobarbitone, sodium amytal
Dextropropoxyphene, methadone
Dextromoramide, chlormethiazole
Spasmoproxybon, Lobain, Nitrosun-10
All that does . . . — anything will do now
Fuck they say relapse’s a part of recovery
Sobriety shows me dead bodies on the walls and ceilings
And nightmares during lunch hour; insomnia in the afternoon
Muscle cramp and pain and constipation all the time.
There must be less to life than this!

The gadgies are not well
The gadgies I cannot depend on them.
Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud, Second Prize
The mates are a waste of fucking time
We are going to see some Pogues and Iggy Pops
No crime is good but nothing is too much
They may be mad at me; they may fucking curse me
Oh! the fellow feeling amongst bloody users
I don’t know about them
I’m going beyond the mountains.
There must be more to life than this!

*Random Novels Distilled into Short Poems (RNDSP)
is a collection of bloody verses extracted from some favourite novels.
The series includes:

RNDSP 1: Post Office, Charles Bukowski (1971)
RNDSP 2: Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh (1993)
RNDSP 3: Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
RNDSP 4: Fear of Flying, Erica Jong (1973)
RNDSP 5: Imphal Amasoong Magi Ising Noongsitki Fibham, Loitongbam Pacha Meitei (Imphal and Its Environs, 1972)


Check the entire RNDSP series