I Know Your Kind

Poems

William Brewer

• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781571314956
• eBook ISBN: 9781571319685
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

"An eye-opening and haunting journey into the opioid epidemic ravaging West Virginia—the constantly-chased highs . . . the devastating overdoses." — Bustle
Selected for the National Poetry Series by Ada Limón, I Know Your Kind is a haunting, blistering debut collection about the American opioid epidemic and poverty in rural Appalachia.
In West Virginia, fatal overdoses on opioids have spiked to three times the national average. In these poems, William Brewer demonstrates an immersive, devastating empathy for both the lost and the bereaved, the enabled and the enabler, the addict who knocks late at night and the brother who closes the door. Underneath and among this multiplicity of voices runs the Appalachian landscape—a location, like the experience of drug addiction itself, of stark contrasts: beauty and ruin, nature and industry, love and despair.
Uncanny, heartbreaking, and often surreal, I Know Your Kind is an unforgettable elegy for the people and places that have been lost to opioids.
"His vivid poems tell the story of the opioid epidemic from different voices and depict the sense of bewilderment people find themselves in as addiction creeps into their lives." —PBS NewsHour
"There's these incredibly dreamy, mythic images . . . of people stumbling, of people hoping, of people losing each other. I love this book because it brought us into such empathy and compassion and tenderness towards this suffering." —NPR
"America's poet laureate of the opioid crisis . . . Brewer sums up this new world." — New York Magazine
"May be one of this year's most important books of verse since its brutal music confronts the taboos of addiction while simultaneously offering hope for overcoming them." — Plume

RESOLUTION

Today is a new year and winter

and there are so many things

I’m ready to think about.

Like that it’s morning

and the power plant

is a womb for clouds.

The clouds aren’t real

because no matter

how hard I look I see

only clouds in them, not rabbits

or a pirate ship or hands.

The sliding glass door

before me should be cold

if I touch it but it won’t be

because I can’t feel anything anymore

after flooding my body

too many times

with an army of synthetic soldiers.

I know this isn’t

a solution. I now know

so much more. I know

that last night five thousand

blackbirds dropped dead

over an Arkansas suburb

and it wasn’t my fault.

I’ve only ever killed a robin

and I’ve never been to Arkansas.

This year I won’t feel

responsible. Last night

I was out on the deck

watching fireworks chew

through the air, flocks

of green and gold that showered

back to earth. Last night

in Arkansas, nightfeather

was everywhere. Did they fall

at once or scatter? This year

I won’t ask questions

like these and I won’t be

disappointed when

I’ve come up with an answer.

I don’t need answers.

I can go to the mailbox

and find a tally

of the grams I’ve shot up

equated to the hours

of daylight I’ve got left

and be fine, knowing

that it’s time to make

some changes. Last night

was the last night

I’m high. I mean it. While everyone

was drinking and ringing in

the New Year, I stood in the yard

and decided that sometimes

you have to tell yourself

you’re the first person

to look out over

the silent highway

at the abandoned billboard

lit up by the moon

and think it’s selling a new

and honest life.

All you’ve got to do is take it.

It’s simple, even when you know

you’re not the first

to stand on a lawn of frozen dark

and scratch his arm

dreaming of the future.

I know there are ways to feel

different than how I do

just before the train pulls in,

or when I walk the halls

while everyone’s asleep,

or when I’m asked to hold

the shotgun, or when my brother

won’t give me cash

though he’s just trying to help

and way back

in the ruins of my mind

I want to make a blackbird

of him. I’m capable of that.

And so are you. I dreamt

disappointment

is like finding a balloon

in a drawer. Once it floats out

you can’t fit it back in.

It just hangs there.

I just hang there on a string.

This year I won’t be

OK with that. In two days

I’ll admit myself

in exchange for putting out

the white fire on my scalp.

A paper cup, a pill,

an IV’s plastic needle

dry-humping an old

stab spot. My bones

will announce themselves

by packing up and moving out,

I’ll melt into my bedsheets

like I used to melt

into upholstery. They’ll say

the hard part’s coming.

When you can’t

take anything for the pain,

the pain takes you.

I’ll wait. I’ll be ready,

I’ll look out

my picture window

where across the street

they’ll be bu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Oxyana, West Virginia
• Icarus in Oxyana
• Halfway House Diary
• Clean Days in Oxyana
• For KC after Losing His Brother
• Oxy 40
• Dog Days
• Voices as of Lions Coming Down
• To the Addict Who Mugged Me
• Early Oxyana: An Anecdote
• Daedalus in Oxyana
• We Burn the Bull
• Naloxone
• Leaving the Pain Clinic
• Sundowning
• Origin of Silence
• Withdrawal Dream amongst Spring Acreage
• Appalachia, Your Genesis
• My Somniloquist
• Overdose Psalm
• Resolution
• Detox Psalm
• What We Can Replace
• Withdrawal Dream with Feather and Knife
• In the New World
• West Virginia
• Halfway House Diary
• To His Enabler
• Withdrawal Dream on the Cape
• Against Enabling
• Playing Along
• Ode to Suboxone
• The Good News
• Letter in Response to a Letter from My Son
• Relapse Psalm
• In the Room of the Overdosed, an Ember
• The Messenger of Oxyana
• Explanation of Matter in Oxyana
• Today I Took You to Our Oxyana High School Reunion
• Ascent
• Oxyana, WV: Exit Song
• There Is a Gold Light
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author