Extract - 2nd person met on the journey

This is a conversation with the second person Pilgrim meets:



'Drawn on my shoe is a green leaf,
You can’t see it, it’s underneath,
Look, see if to you it speaks’

‘I see darkness and confusion’
I said ‘Robbery and prison,
I see a childhood robbed of joy,
Then you a wily older boy,
I see you drugged, You in a daze,
Freedom sought through toxic haze,
A corpse outside Boots the Chemist,
A death not mourned, a life not missed’,

‘Freedom sought, to a large degree,
Was cause of my dependency.
My mother drank, she was depressed,
No joy she took in my first breath.
As a teenager I was mean,
Then sought out the free party scene,
The dancing people cared for me,
I rode on waves of Ecstasy,
The freedom and camaraderie,
That was my first dependency,
A few years on, memory shot,
I saw they didn’t care a lot,
Freedom and Love without true form,
Don’t last so long, don’t last at all,
So I sought freedom not in Trance,
That manic, crazy, chemical dance,
But instead in oblivion,
The silk steel grip of heroine.
I was a nasty piece of work,
Down alleys, hungry, would I lurk,
3 times the Judge rehab ordered,
The last time, by all so battered,
I prayed my chains would break and fall,
I felt some peace, some glimmer small.
But 8 year chains are strong indeed,
I held my chains and fed my need,
And there you see me sleeping deep,
I crumpled, ruined, heroin heap.
The Lord’s kindness and great mercy,
In me a mustard seed did see,
He raised me up, and re-clothed me,
And to my joy, in him I saw,
All I had sought, and so much more.’

I looked in to his bright green eyes,
Entirely free, just so alive.