Tag: Addiction

His Heroin(e)

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Photo Jul 06, 6 56 57 PM

I lie on his bed while he shoots dope in the bathroom.

He runs the sink so I won’t hear him heat the spoon, but I still hear the flick-flick-flick of the lighter through the old vent in the floor. I can see though the walls. I. Hear. Every. Sound. The brown paste boils thin, to a liquid. The cotton top of a Q-tip soaks it up — breathes in the poison — like it’s alive. Each white fiber expands, taking on its color, like a web of molasses.

I stare at his water-stained ceiling. Rot from the upstairs apartment bleeding through the paint. The edges plume out and peel in the shape of mushrooms. I close my eyes. I see the tip of his needle drink it in. — His Heroin.

The plunger pulls back, and the spoon empties, like a tide going out. Smooth. Like a thick, dark caramel — drawn up by the moon. I cry quietly as I watch the way his cat just sits at the bathroom door. Waiting. — “C’mere kitty kitty.” I whisper.

I feel him poke his veins. Stick them. I found the syringes in his top drawer. Again. I hold the tops of my arms. I am outside my body. The girl is on the bed and the junkie is in the bathroom. I’m confused by my own acceptance. I allow this. My story. His story. Either way, it’s a war story. A story where sharp objects are made blunt and hard hearts are made harder. A world that defeats me with permission, not conquest. Then, I become her — some version of her — His Heroine. No. No. That’s wrong. It’s — His Heroin.

Some junkies will tell you that until you shoot dope, you don’t understand. — The high. The letting go. The relief. — It’s not true though. You don’t even have to move to understand. Just sit. Wait. — I sat perfectly still. I sat in another room while it swirled around me, not in me. A demon in the vents. You don’t have to feel that ugly, brown stuff pulse in your own, blue veins to witness its power.

Yield to it. Vulgar and dark. A power that turns your Hero into someone else. Something else. And then, you watch this creature lose everything. Lose themselves. Lose you.

But really………they just let you go.

Everything’s gone. And, all the while, I’m right there, it’s all right there. I try to trick myself into believing something that isn’t true. But, the cat’s still sitting, waiting, his tail curled neatly around his soft, white feet. And it is — true.

He will give up anything. Anything. And, I learn, this includes me. It hits like a revelation. Christ Our Lord, where are you? I’ll never be sure. But, look, listen! The stained ceiling. The vent. The sink. The flick-flick-flick. The breathing cotton. The needle pulls.

I’ve dreamed it. No — no. I’m still awake. I’m still frozen. Me. The cat. We’re sitting in the same places.

I’ve seen it in the movies. I’ve read my Burroughs. It’s not the same. It’s not the same as watching him. Reading him. Feeling him slip. I cast him off like a thin line from the side of my boat, and he’s just a heavy lure sinking into the depths of this — some bottomless lake. His eyes disappear in a pool of water.

I imagine how he feels when he ties one off. How it makes him safer than I ever could. How the needle is the lover I never was and never can be. Sometimes, I imagine that he is a drunk, like me — not this. I imagine that the scars on his arms and legs are from something else — like the butts of his father’s cigarettes, maybe. It’s easier when I have someone to blame.

Fuck the poppy.

In the Springtime a coworker tells me — “It’s such a happy little flower!” I smile at her, but behind my face, under my skin, I grit my teeth. Poppies. At their dark, sticky center — lives the seed. Devil’s sap. I won’t eat your poppy seed bagels. Not anymore. And, now, I check the ingredients on the back of the multi-grain bread.

Heroin. Just a seed. It will always be stuck in my teeth. I will poke at my gums forever — but no amount of prodding will free it. It’s right there. On the tip of my tongue. At the base of my molar.

He is in the bathroom and I’m sitting on the bed. Waiting.
Later — with eyes half closed, he asks: “You didn’t see me, did you?”

“No.” I say.

But, while he sleeps, I do see it. How his love has left his body. And with gloves and bleach, I wash it away.

All that blood on the bathroom walls.

 

Photo: Allison Webber; http://www.allisonwebber.photography/

I’ve Still Got It, Baby.

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Photo Jan 27, 11 35 57 PMI did it. It happened. I drank.

And — fuck man. Coffee is good.

All it took was one quintuple-shot-Americano. And, after nearly three months without coffee or caffeine, one sip was all I needed. GAME FUCKING ON. Caffeinate me. More. MORE! And, there it is, right in front of me. I’ve still got it, baby. After all this time, it remains — all or nothing. And, I concede; moderation is something that I just can’t do. I stand face to face with the thing I’ve known for years, but, I still want to ignore. — I’m an addict.

But, really, addiction is just the squeaky wheel. Pretty soon, what was an innocent squeak sends the car flying off the road, and then, everything gets stuck. Before anyone knows what happened — I’m back in a rut. But, it wasn’t the coffee. I swear.

And, we allow this. Our drinks and our drugs and our sex and our coffee and our food and our sugar to literally halt us, to pick us up, and to force us to try and hold on to something that can’t be held. But, not just anything — it’s this one thing. This. We break from everything — for this. There is solace in obsession. And, here, in my coffee cup, I can taste it. Yup. I’ve still got it.

Sometimes, I forget that the obsession was the cure. It wasn’t the bourbon or the bong or the fuck or the soy latte or the entire bag of Oreos or the handful of jelly beans. — It was the planning and the ritual. It was the reward. The supply and demand. Addiction offers something else — it hoists us up just long enough for us to see what we’re missing before letting us go — dropping us back into the mud. Addiction plows elaborate paths that lead nowhere. And, trudging back to the open road is exhausting. It can take everything you have. Frustration will ooze from old, muddy wounds and things will begin to spill over the sides of our ditches. It’s inevitable, our unattended ruts will flood.

Sometimes you’ll get stuck for so long, that you’ll forget what it felt like when you weren’t crawling through the sludge. Ruts hold us in a steady cycle. But stability is misleading. — Sometimes, it’s nothing more than limbo. Doldrums. Drudgery. Dread. — It goes a step beyond pessimism, because you are an active participant in the attempted escape from your rut. But, the same motion that’s needed to set yourself free can sometimes make you feel that you’ve lost yourself in an unstoppable flow. There is an actual rhythm in this kind of being. — It’s battle. And, as an addict, I know it. — I once felt that the only way to return to normalcy was to let my addiction take the wheel. Everyone gets tired of driving.

But, there has to be a moment where we finally see clearly. We learn to steady the wheel. Sometimes we find that moment in sobriety. Or, that moment is the one that gets us sober. Or, it’s an even smaller happening, one we can’t put our finger on. But, however we’re made to see it — it’s the way out — a point in time that’s absolutely pivotal to our awakening. It’s the place we must reach if we’re to keep moving forward. It’s the only way to get un-stuck.

So, we learn to harness our Chi and we stop treading water — we begin to throw our proverbial sandbags into the trenches and let the process of sopping up the excess begin. And, somehow, here, we find the tools we didn’t know we had.

Maybe, some afternoon, you’ll find yourself ordering a quintuple-shot-Americano and your hands will shake with anticipation at the end of the coffee bar as the barista pulls the espresso. And, while you’re waiting to receive your hot-paper-cup in its smooth-cardboard-sleeve, maybe, you’ll suddenly understand where you’re going and where you’ve been.

And, as you drop your empty coffee cup in trash can, you feel the caffeine hit you. — ZING!

Yeah. — You’ve still got it, baby.