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  • Trip Reports Moderator: Xorkoth

(methamphetamine~75mg, beer~1500ml) I'm a junky. And an alcoholic. This, is Tuesday.

ForEverAfter

Ex-Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 16, 2012
Messages
2,836
Junk Mail, Part 4

"I'm a junky. And an alcoholic. This, is Tuesday."
(Methamphetamine ~75mg, beer~1500ml)





It's six o'clock in the morning and my head is fucked.

Didn't realize I'd gone to sleep.

I wake up, disoriented, on the couch.

For a minute or two, I don't know where I am.

My lounge is an alien.

Memories flood back into my head like a blocked toilet.

Yesterday is incomplete.

I remember hanging out with a girl, 10 years younger than me.

A girl I've always loved.

I remember telling her to show me her tits.

She was too shy.

If I persisted, she would have.

But I'm a nice guy.

I didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

So we talked.

We laughed.

Now, I love her more than ever.

I'm freezing.

Withdrawing from meth.

I wrap the thin blue blanket around myself and try to sleep, but it's no use.

I say, “Fuck,” at the top of my voice.

Not hungover enough to vomit.

I'm in that post-alcohol grey area, between nightmarish and insignificant.

I am so close to the nightmare.

My head might as well be in the toilet, but it's not.

If I could vomit, if only I could vomit, then I'd be okay.

I get up.

There are musical instruments set up on the carpet.

My electric piano.

My keyboard.

Did I jam with her last night?

She has a beautiful voice.

It is operatic, divine.

Listening to her sing sends shivers down my spine.

She's too good for me.

I regret imposing myself upon her.

With all my problems.

My track marks.

The drugs.

She doesn't need any of that.

My bottle of scotch is empty, lying sideways on the carpet.

I find four half-empty beers scattered around the room.

Four empty pre-mixed vodka cans.

Cigarette butts, a half dozen syringes.

Shit, I didn't inject her did I?

I've corrupted too many young girls.

I start to panic.

Can't find my gear.

There's about a thousand dollars, in fifties, littered around the room.

Did I score last night?

Fuck.

I search everywhere.

Finally, I find it.

Half a gram of meth in a little baggy.

Nice little crystals, too.

Better than usual.

I try to force myself to vomit, but I can't.

My body temperature is fluctuating between too hot and too cold.

The withdrawals are getting unbearable.

I can't stop using.

I have a serious problem.

I need to go to rehab, but I keep putting it off.

I keep telling myself, “Just one more bag.”

“One more syringe.”

I've been saying that for, I don't know, maybe six weeks.

I lost track of time a long time ago.

Three days feels like a year when you're tweaking.

I have no conception of how many hours have passed, at any given time.

I don't know how much meth I've done, either.

No idea.

Ten grams?

Twenty?

It's impossible to say.

I grab a beer out of the fridge, and place a cigarette against my lips.

Step outside.

The sun is shining.

I shade my burning irises, with my hoody.

Stumble down the road, listening to The Grey Album by Danger Mouse.

I don't know where I'm going.

I need something.

Need to go somewhere.

I cross the road.

Walk down to the bottle shop, on auto-pilot.

It's closed.

I cross the road.

A city-bound tram is approaching.

I stumble up to the tram stop.

Men and women, respectable types, on their way to work.

They don't make eye contact with me as I empty the contents of my beer down my throat.

Spilling it, beer dripping off my chin.

I say, “Fuck,” at the top of my voice and throw the empty beer into a bush.

Jump on the tram.

Don't know where I'm going.

I need something.

Notice a fast-food joint, out the window.

Get off.

Jay Z, rapping: “If you got girl problems, I feel bad for you son; I got ninety nine problems but a bitch ain't one.”

I order a double burger with bacon and an egg and bacon wrap.

It's been at least three days since I've had a proper meal.

I sit down and say, “Fuck”, at the top of my voice.

The other patrons don't make eye contact with me.

My pants are torn to pieces.

My underpants are clearly visible.

I smell like shit.

The lines under my eyes are so deep, you could swim in them.

Both of my eyes are bloodshot.

Skin is peeling off my lips.

I glance at the newspaper as I eat, but it doesn't interest me.

I am not hungry.

I force myself to eat.

Throw the paper on the floor.

I try to finish the burger on my way home.

But I can't.

It's way too much food.

I eat, maybe, two thirds of it.

When I arrive home, my cat Squid greets me at the letterbox.

He makes a happy little noise, rubbing his arched back against my leg.

I give him the rest of my burger and pat him affectionately on the nose.

The withdrawals actually make the hangover less severe.

Meth inhibits the effects of alcohol and withdrawals inhibit hangovers.

Hangovers are nothing.

I wish I could vomit, though.

As soon as I step inside the house, I feel depressed.

The place is fucked.

Somebody burnt the carpet last night.

It's black, and soaked with beer.

I'm in no state to clean up, so I avoid the lounge.

The smell of stale cigarettes and flat beer thick in the air.

I call work and tell them I'm sick.

They struggle to understand what I'm saying.

I have to concentrate in order to articulate coherently.

I hang up.

I need to get high.

Really fucking high.

But there's no 29 gauge syringes left.

And I'm not going to start using 27s again.

I can't, my veins are too damaged.

I realize my right arm is red.

Did I slam anything last night?

Fuck.

Did I inject her?

I didn't.

Please tell me I didn't.

I examine my tracks.

Can't tell if there are any fresh injection sites.

Seems okay.

But the fingers, on my right arm, are swollen.

My skin is wrinkled.

My knuckles are bright red, like cherries.

Did I punch someone?

Fuck.

The one thing about hangovers that isn't affected by meth, is the amnesia.

I hate alcohol amnesia.

I tend to do things and say things I shouldn't when I'm drunk, I can deal with that.

What drives me crazy is not knowing.

I open another beer.

Consider smoking a joint, but I don't like weed anymore.

Meth renders weed impotent.

Meth renders everything else irrelevant.

Need to get high.

Super fucking high.

Slam some of that beautiful crystal I found on the fax machine this morning.

Might as well take advantage of my day off.

I leave the house.

Walk half a kilometre to the bus stop.

Got a twenty minute wait.

I walk to the next stop.

Time is going so slowly.

I realize I keep looking at my watch, like every ten seconds.

High anxiety.

I lie down, on the nature strip, propping my back up against the bus stop pole.

I look like a fucking derolict, but I don't care.

People walking their dogs don't make eye contact.

I hear them muttering about me.

Disapproving.

I dont' care, about any of it.

Dedicated to the mission.

I lie down, on the bus.

Find myself falling asleep.

No wonder, really.

Had about 3 hours sleep over the past three or four days, I think.

It's hard to say.

People on the bus don't make eye contact with me.

I get off at the end of the line, Box Hill.

Head straight for the NSP.

There's an Indian guy working there, never seen him before.

He's nervous.

I tell him I need a hundred 29s, a box of swabs, and a dozen ampoules of sterile water.

He tells me I have to pay for the water upstairs.

Fifty cents each.

I stop at the water cooler.

Drink three cups of water.

There's a couple of middle-aged women, typical conservative suburban types, sitting nearby.

They are watching me with the corners of their eyes.

I can feel them, looking.

I get on the elevator, holding the door open for an elderly woman.

I smile at her.

She doesn't say, “Thank you.”

Doesn't make eye contact.

I don't care.

I get off, and head for the reception desk.

Fourth on the left, like the Indian guy told me.

I'm standing there, waiting, behind an old guy.

It's a reception desk for the community dental practice.

A waiting room, full of patients.

Non-users.

They don't make eye contact with me.

Time is trailing, slower and slower.

The old cunt in front of me is taking forever.

I want to stab him in the spine and leave him bleeding on the carpet.

But that would just interfere with my mission.

They're not going to sell me water if I kill someone.

The woman behind the counter convincingly feigns her pleasantries.

She treats me with more respect than I deserve.

I feel ashamed.

Poor woman.

Having to deal with junkies on a daily basis.

I am pacing back and forth like a bull.

My eyes darting around the room.

Absorbing everything.

Every detail.

There is a laminated chart on the wall beside reception.

Little pictures that mute people can point to in order to communicate.

I wish I was mute.

The elevator takes about three years to arrive, give or take a month.

I stand there, with my water receipt, aging rapidly.

Every second is painful.

I give the receipt to the Indian guy.

He packs my supplies into an inconspicuous carry bag.

I thank him, insincerely, and head outside.

Stop at the water cooler again.

Drink three more cups of water.

The suburban types, still glaring at me.

There's a junky with a pony tail on the street, on stakeout.

He's waiting for another junky to rob.

You've got to watch out for theiving junky cunts when you go to NSPs.

It's okay, he doesn't like the look of me.

Good thing for him, I'd beat the shit of him if he tried anything.

Lay my misery on him with my swollen red fists.

I tell him as much with a little stare, as I walk past.

He looks down at his shoes.

I go to the bottle shop and grab a six pack of mid-strength beer.

I always feel conflicted buying alcohol.

Every time I buy a six pack, or a bottle of wine or scotch or bourbon.

Today I am more conflicted than usual.

I seriously consider leaving.

I try to consider it, anyway.

I should stop drinking, I know.

I keep telling myself, “One more day.”

I keep telling myself, “Tommorow.”

But it's always today.

There is a twenty minute wait for the bus.

I say, “Fuck,” at the top of my voice.

Glare at an old Asian woman, sitting on a bench, as if it's her fault.

She avoids eye contact.

I go back to the shopping centre.

Grab some tataki.

The red meat equivalent of sashimi.

Raw beef and salad.

I love Japanese food.

I could eat it all day.

Don't even need to be hungry.

When I get back to the terminus, the bus is idling.

I eat the tataki on the way home.

Resist the temptation to crack open a beer.

The bus driver, he might kick me out if I start drinking.

Seems like a bit of a cunt.

Fat fucking piece of shit.

I'm not going to let him compromise my mission.

It's not worth it.

I drink a beer on the way home.

My cat Squid greets me at the letterbox.

He makes a happy little sound and rubs his arched back against my leg.

His tail wrapped around my ankle.

I love him.

I feel warmth spreading through my body when I see my cats.

The same way I feel when I see women I love.

I love so many women.

Too many.

Life is too short.

I'll never be with them all.

The love I feel for my cat is incapable of combating my withdrawals.

I feel depressed and happy simultaneously.

Mostly depressed.

As soon as I step inside my house, I want to die.

The smell of cat piss, stale cigarettes and flat beer.

Clothes scattered about in the hallway.

A pornographic magazine lying crumpled amidst an assortment of debris.

The carpet is rank, full of parasites and thick with dust.

I say, “Fuck,” at the top of my voice.

I avoid the lounge.

Go straight into my study and prepare a shot.

Drink a pint of water, so I'm sure I can register.

That is the only reason I hydrate.

So my blood will flow.

Otherwise, I would quite happily die of thirst.

I don't weigh the dose.

Eye roughly three quarters of a point into a spoon.

Suck it up into a 29.

Go outside, through the back door, the syringe gripped between my teeth.

The lawn is mowed into crop circles.

I settle down in the middle of one, leaning my back against an upturned table.

This is my favorite spot for injecting during the day.

In clear view of my neighbours, who I'm certain are terrified of me.

The sky is clear.

The sun on my skin.

I take off my hoody.

The right arm is red and swollen.

So I use the left.

Register on my second attempt.

But the flow isn't great.

I'm half in the vein.

But, that's okay.

Half in is better than out.

This vein's not going to collapse if I miss a bit.

I push the plunger in, as slow as I can manage.

Feel a tiny bit of pain.

The rush kicking in, I keep pushing.

Empty the syringe completely, including a large air bubble.

It spreads through my body, flushing my face.

The hangover is gone.

The withdrawals are over.

I put the syringe back in my mouth and walk blissfully back inside.

The state of my house no longer bothers me.

I find a book open on my bed.

A short story I had published, about an older man corrupting a young girl.

A short story about rape and intravenous drug use.

She must have read it, last night.

I love her.

The first sentence reads, “It's six o'clock in the morning and my head is fucked.”

I'm a junky.

And an alcoholic.

This, is Tuesday.
 
Last edited:
Man, I love reading these. This is amazing. Meth is serious business but it has produced some of the best writing I've seen, and I'm not just talking about on Bluelight.

Godspeed, my friend <3
 
“What goes up must come down.” - Sir Isaac Newton





Junk Mail, Part 5

"I'm necrotic. Or just psychotic. This, was Tuesday."
(Methamphetamine ~150mg, Marijuana ~1.5 grams)





It's six o'clock at night and my head is fucked.

This morning's shot has long since worn off.

I know I shouldn't, but I prepare another.

A massive shot.

I don't weigh it.

I eye what I estimate to be 125 mg.

This is the highest dose I typically attempt.

It is my limit.

Only use 70 units of water, which means it's stronger than normal.

And, therefore, more corrosive.

I'm going to have to do it perfectly.

If I miss it, any of it, it will do serious damage.

I don't have a lot of time, though.

The sun is setting.

Shadows spreading rapidly across the lawn.

I put the syringe between my teeth and go outside.

Sit down in the middle of my crop circle.

My back against the upturned table.

I've got maybe ten minutes of light.

The time constraint makes me nervous.

I try to race the sun.

I fuck it up.

Attempt to register twelve times.

Pull on the walls of a couple of veins.

My hands are shaking uncontrollably.

I'm in no state to be doing this.

I knew I shouldn't have attempted.

Which made me nervous.

Racing the sun on top of that.

An absolute fucking disaster.

I do a lot of damage to my already fragile veins.

Never manage to remain in register.

Keep slipping out on account of the shakes.

I get more and more nervous as the shadows approach me.

I've been surfing the fine line between collapsing a vein and getting one more shot.

Been doing this for a month.

Always pushing it, how much I can get away with.

Sometimes, I've just got to accept the fact that I've failed.

This, unfortunately, is not one of those times.

An eighth of a fucking gram.

I can't waste an eighth of a gram.

On my thirteenth attempt, I manage to register and stay registered.

Push in slowly.

The rush is extremely intense.

Too intense.

Probably the strongest rush I've ever had from meth.

My face is already tingling like crazy with 15 units left in the syringe.

I should stop here, but I'm curious.

I pause for a bit, and continue.

Real slow.

A little bit at a time.

Careful to detect any sign of overdose.

Do the whole thing.

Shakily pull the syringe out of my arm and apply pressure.

Suck up some water into the barrel.

Squirt the contents of the syringe down the back of my throat.

Obviously, I didn't eye the dose correctly.

It's more like 150 mg, maybe.

Hard to say, because I've never slammed more than 125 mg in one go.

However much it is, it's too much.

I'm rushing so hard I can't enjoy it.

Very close to an overdose.

If I didn't have a tolerance, I'd be dead.

As soon as I get inside, I start obsessing about my hands.

The right one is still swollen.

I can't remember if the swelling has gone down in between shots.

But it hasn't really had the chance.

I examine every last bit of skin, coming to all sorts of bizarre conclusions.

Experiencing psychotic symptoms beyond my ability to handle.

Cannot differentiate between reality and delusion.

I find these black spots on my finger and thumb-tips.

Never seen them before.

They're pitch black.

Then, maybe I'm hallucinating them.

I struggle to determine what is and what isn't.

Eventually I conclude that they are there.

Matching images from the internet with my hand.

They're called infarcts.

Before fingers go gangrenous, they turn black.

The skin dies.

As they start to blacken, as flesh dies, small infarcts pop up.

Localised necrosis means localised death.

My hand is dying.

I am dying.

Apparently the only way to treat it, is to remove the dead tissue.

I try using my fingernail, scratching single layers of skin off.

Takes too long.

So I look around for something I can use.

Find a stanley knife in my tool drawer.

I scrap layer after layer of skin off.

The blade running adjacent to the curve of my left thumb.

I get through I reckon about ten layers of skin.

It's still there.

A nasty little group of infarctions.

I'm really scared.

Convinced that if I just cut them out, I'll be fine.

So I keep going.

Layer after layer of skin.

Then, I slip with the blade.

Cut a chunk of flesh out of my thumb.

Roughly two centimetres squared.

Three or four millimetres deep

Luckily, somehow, I manage to slip into the right part of the thumb.

Remove the infarcts with one quick slice.

There's a shallow pink grave nested in my thumb-tip

I'm just about to pat myself on the back when it starts bleeding.

It bleeds so much that I have to cup my other hand underneath it.

Collecting a handful of blood, as I search for a band-aid.

Only to discover that there's no band-aids left.

None big enough, anyway.

So I make one out of a rubber band and some cotton.

Careful not to cut off the circulation.

The accident doesn't affect my determination.

I move on to the other mother fuckers.

Use a variety of tools.

Including a pair of nail scissors.

A small silver safety pin.

A sewing needle.

And the good old stanley.

I'm careful not to slip again.

I was lucky before.

Might cut an artery or something if I do it again.

It takes 3 hours.

I smoke two or three small joints.

Can't feel their effects much against the huge dose of meth.

I get really into cutting my flesh, like it's a video game or something.

Don't give up until they've all been removed.

Then I start working on the fingernails.

The index fingernail on my right hand was really sore when I woke up.

Didn't think about it all day.

I tend to wake up with strange injuries as a result of alcohol.

I'm used to ignoring them.

And ignoring the pain.

Probably why I didn't notice the piece of glass.

It's still lodged in the bottom of my right foot.

I think it's glass, anyway.

There's definitely something in there, I can feel it.

Hard as a rock, with sharp edges.

It's pretty deep.

I'm going to need to cut my way into it.

But the fingernails are more of a concern.

Bit of glass in my foot isn't going to have any serious consequences.

So, the fingernail was sore when I woke up.

But there was also a whole lot of unidentified black crust.

Under all ten fingernails, not just the one.

As if I'd been digging, with my bare hands.

Having removed all the infarcts, I turn my attention to this new mystery.

Examine the right index closely.

Something's odd about it.

Can't put my finger on it straight away.

Then I notice, it's disconnected from my finger on the left hand side.

A long split separating nail from nail fold.

The nail scissors poking in the gap between finger and nail.

It was possible to manoeuvre the blades underneath.

And slide them from the side.

My instant reaction was necrosis.

My finger is dying.

The nails are falling off.

Though, I don't know why it's happening now.

Did I attempt to use again last night.

And fuck up my arm in the process.

I must have.

I was drunk.

I look around for unaccounted for syringes.

Find some in the lounge, I don't remember using.

3 ml barrels and 1 ml, 27 gauge barrels.

Fuck, I forgot.

All I had left last night were 27s.

Trying to slam meth blind drunk with 27s is a bad idea.

Especially since I already have chronic vascular damage.

I find a bloody, empty syringe near my prep station.

Check myself for injection fresh sites.

There's nothing obvious and there should be.

A 27, done incorrectly, should do a serious amount of damage.

Yet all the injection sites in the crooks of my arms look like 29s.

I'm a little baffled.

I smoke a joint.

This makes me more confused.

Accelerating the psychosis.

Unless.

I pull down my pants, to discover two injection sites on the left side of my groin.

The fucking femoral.

While I'm drunk.

With a fucking 27.

Brilliant.

It's one of the most dangerous veins to hit.

And I've never even attempted it before.

I almost feel sick thinking about it.

I could hardly walk last night.

I have bruises and cuts all over me from crashing in to things.

My femoral attempts must have been a fucking nightmare.

I'm lucky I didn't hit the femoral artery.

Or develop a DVT.

I drop my pants around my ankles.

Mother fucker.

My knees are bright red.

I take off my socks.

The pinky on my left foot is red.

God fucking damn it, I'm an idiot.

What was I thinking?

I guess it's better than if I'd tried the arms.

I would've collapsed them all in the crooks of my arms.

I don't think I persisted too much with the femoral.

I missed the fartery.

And I only made two attempts.

It's slightly less dangerous going for the femoral for my body-type.

I'm incredibly skinny.

I can quite clearly see large Y-shaped sections of the vein.

On both sides of my groin.

And, since I'm skinny, they're much closer to the surface.

Which means I don't have to dig.

And there's less chance of hitting the fartery.

Fuck it, back to the fingernail crust.

I tried removing it with every tool at my disposal.

But it was stuck, hard, under the nail.

After a long confused period, I realised something.

The black stuff under my fingernails, and on them, was me.

Dead bits of me.

I started cutting them out, bit by bit.

Working systematically until not the slightest trace of black remained.

I suspected, while doing this, that I was crazy.

Still, I persisted.

Smoking another two joints.

With each drag, I become increasingly scattered.

The meth has pretty much worn off.

Go to bed at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Unsure of whether or not I'd just cut myself because I'm crazy.

If I've saved my own life or prevented the amputation of a finger.

Don't know if I'm psychotic or necrotic.

This, was Tuesday.





Junk Mail, Part 6

"On the verge of death. This, is Gravity."
(Methamphetamine ~50mg, Beer ~380ml)





Wednesday.

I wake up at half past eight.

Have a quick bath.

Go to grab a beer out of the fridge, it's empty.

Find the remains of my six-pack on the floor, near the front door.

Emerge into the blinding light of day, a cigarette balanced against my lips.

Miss the tram: sit at the bus stop, drinking my warm mid-strength beer.

The tram arrives: I get on, expertly concealing the beer from the driver.

Drink, disinterested in the disapproving glares I receive from the other passengers.

At the next tram stop, I finish my beer and extinguish my cigarette into the empty can.

Get on the next tram, half-asleep.

Miss the connecting bus.

Arrive at work on time, somehow.

Do my job perfectly, as usual I go far beyond what is required of me.

I put my co-workers to shame.

I am a functional addict.

Fuck what happened last night.

It's a miracle, really, that I've only experienced two periods of psychosis.

Two months of using, you've got to expect a bit of the old crazy.

When I started this epic binge, I could see smells.

I was hallucinating more than a dozen people on acid.

Then, the calm.

That long functional period of uninterrupted tweaking.

Six or seven weeks, I think.

Could be ten.

Or five.

But it felt like a lifetime.

I try to trivialise the gaping wounds on my hands.

I try to laugh, but somehow I don't manage to convince myself that it's funny.

I finish work eighty minutes late.

Not because I'm lazy.

Quite the opposite.

I do everything.

No meth in my blood.

Just pure determination.

I battle waves of fatigue.

My empty stomach.

My head, buzzing with Tuesday's nightmare.

Nothing can stop me.

I have no limits.

Fuck linearity.

I am the snake biting it's own tail, never swallowing.

I am running a perpetual marathon.

Defying the rules of nature.

I am God.

I have everyone laughing at work.

I ensure that everyone is happy.

That we all get along.

Before I go I ask the senior staff member – on sentry duty – to fill out an incident form.

He tells me, technically, it's my job to do so.

Even though he's just sitting there, on sentry.

Doing nothing.

I lose my cool.

I tell him his job his easy.

I tell him he's lazy.

Who cares, I say, if I fill out the form or if you do.

Rules are supposed to be functional.

You don't have to adhere to them, blindly.

I don't say goodbye, when I leave.

I hiss the word, “Bureaucracy.”

Fucking little mole-man.

Weak little cunt.

Lazy fuck.

I go to my next shift.

It's out in the middle of nowhere.

The outskirts of Melbourne.

Last suburb before the landscape transitions into bushland.

There are three people on the bus: me; a teenage girl; and a stoner-type.

I lie down on the seats reserved for disabled passengers.

Stretch out, comfortably.

Look up, through the window, at the clouds.

Think about Men Who Stare at Goats.

Try to burst a cloud or two.

Recognise every shape in the universe.

An all-encompassing parade.

People and animals.

Inanimate things.

Machines.

Planets.

Galaxies.

The sky is beautiful today.

Life is good.

I arrive at my next shift, in good spirits.

Tuesday's nightmare, no longer buzzing around in my head.

I make a huge effort, as usual, to transcend my own standard of excellence.

I devote genuine attention to everyone, even the people I don't like.

I make everyone laugh. I make everyone smile.

I don't bother eating or drinking water.

Don't need food.

Don't need anything.

I change band aids, reapplying savlon.

I find myself staring at my hands.

They look so old.

So much older than they did at the beginning of the year.

Like the hands of a forty or fifty year old man, who's spent his life in the sun.

But I'm not tanned.

Skin blotchy, inflamed.

Millions of tiny wrinkles, like contours on a map.


My right hand, ten – maybe twenty – percent bigger than my left.

I don't realise that I'm staring at them.

Or, I don't realise that I'm at work.

Either way, I keep staring.

Examining.

Revisiting the nightmare.

I notice something on my left hand.

A little vein, running sideways.

Bright purple spider vein.

I've never seen it before.

I think, “Fuck.”

The nightmare wasn't psychosis.

The nightmare is real.

My hands are much worse than they've ever been.

Suddenly aware of where I am, I distract myself.

I get back to work.

But there's nothing to do, today.

Sentry duty, more or less.

I try to read a book, but I'm incapable.

I am running out of fuel.

My brain can't focus.

My eyes blur.

I keep putting the book down, and looking at my hands.

Examining the tips of my fingers.

Someone asks me about the band-aids.

I confide in him.

Because I'm scared, and he's cool.

He knows about my psychosis.

And my lifestyle, more or less.

Minus the intravenous bit.

I can trust him.

I tell him I think I'm going to die.

I tell him that it's started already.

I say, “My hand is dying.”

I say, “I used a stanley knife to cut dying skin out of my hand.”

Eventually I concede that it's possible I'm imagining it.

Hypochondriac, that I am.

He tries, and fails, to convince me that I'm fine.

I become increasingly pre-occupied with me hands.

I ask him if there's a needle or a safety pin on the premises.

He gives me a strange look.

He says, “What for?” with his eyes.

I tell him I have a splinter.

He demands that I show it to him, before he gives me the needle.

I show him the last bit of necrosis.

A tiny infarct near the tip of the ring finger on my right hand.

It looks like a splinter, sort of.

He accepts it, anyway.

But he's still got that strange look.

We both know what I'm about to do.

I start digging into my finger.

Peeling back layer after layer of skin, until I draw blood.

The tiny black dot, disappears.

I examine every layer of skin I remove.

Not a trace of black on any of them.

“How did you go?” he asks me.

I tell him there was nothing there.

It doesn't make any sense.

“We both saw it,” I say.

“No,” he responds. “I didn't see anything.”

He's starting to get noticeably uncomfortable.

My mental state continues to deteriorate.

I reveal too much.

I tell him I have peripheral edema.

He tells me I don't.

I don't know who to believe.

Am I crazy?

I find another infarct.

Start digging around again.

The black spot disappears.

I tell him, my voice shaking a little, “I either need to go to the hospital or to a psych ward.”

It's a difficult thing to admit.

Me being God and all.

“No,” I say, disagreeing with myself. “I'm fine.”

This goes on for roughly two hours.

The shift is eighteen hours long.

It runs straight through the night, to lunchtime the next day.

I can't possibly stay.

Yes I can.

I can do anything.

I drink some water.

I force myself to eat.

But nothing distracts me from the necrosis.

The word rattles around in my head like an insect suffocating in a jar.

Necrosis.

Necrosis.

I'm going to die.

No, I'm not.

That's ridiculous.

I'm just a hypochondriac.

I'll be fine.

But, what if this time it's not hypochondria...

And I ignore it, like they ignored the boy who cried wolf?

I could lose a finger.

Two fingers.

A hand.

It's late at night when I finally collapse.

I completely lose it.

I tell him, “I've got to go.”

I say, “That's it. I can't take it any more.”

I start crying like I did when I was a child.

My lips trembling.

Snot dribbling out of my nostrils.

I tell him, I whisper, “I'm having a mental breakdown.”

Put my head between my legs, dripping tears on the tiled floor.

Trying to get a grip of myself.

They can hear me crying.

Sobbing, like a little boy.

I breathe deep.

I repress.

Put my eyes in reverse.

Suck tears back into ducts.

Snot back into nostrils.

Force my feelings deep into the endless abyss.

Manage to reduce my sobbing to sniffling.

Then, there's an emergency.

I have to work.

He tells me to go.

But I can't do that.

Before I go, I force myself to function once more.

Reduce the sniffling to a pained expression.

Manage, somehow, to function.

Far below my standard of excellence.

I meet the minimum standard the job requires, if that.

It's the best I can do.

When it's over, I immediately start crying again.

My lip, trembling.

Snot mixing with tears.

Dripping onto my shirt.

My mind, an descending further and further into instability.

My actions, less and less professional.

Until, finally, as I step out the door, I am utterly dysfunctional.

After weeks of expertly disguising the drugs, I reveal myself

No longer God; now, just a junky.

Never a God, now; always a junky.

A junky and a lunatic.

A blubbering little bitch.

The more I think about the tears, the faster they flow.

I miss the last bus by seven minutes.

The only other way to get home is to walk, twenty minutes, to another bus line.

After two minutes, I am limping.

The piece of glass lodged in my foot.

I forgot about it.

With every step, I drive it further into my foot.

Until it rests against a major nerve.

I can hardly walk.

I hobble through the darkness of this remote place.

Tears running down my cheeks.

Tuesday's nightmare, haunting me.

I stumble through grassy fields.

Struggle up embankments.

The pain never stops increasing.

Somehow, I manage not to fall over.

Tree branches and bits of fence cut into me.

I can't see them in the darkness.

My pants, torn into shreds.

I have to resist falling to the ground, and screaming.

I want to collapse, completely.

Sink lower than junky.

Madder than a lunatic.

I want tears to spray out of my eyes, like piss out of a horse's cock.

This pain, showering over me.

I don't want to fight it any more.

I'm so tired of keeping it together.

I'm not a junky.

I'm not a lunatic.

Just a little boy.

A small part of me, the remnant of my invincible alter-ego, drives me forward.

Every pore in my body, resisting.

The hairs on my head heavier than anchors.

Pushing me down into the long grass.

Beside the road.

In the paddock.

Against the fence.

I whisper to myself, “Fuck.”

And I keep walking.

Never having known such utter despair.

I arrive at the bus stop.

Collapse, peering up at the skewed timetable.

Squinting, long-distance, through my foggy glasses.

Through the scratched plastic covering the Monday-Friday times.

With teary eyes.

No fuel.

No faith in myself.

Just pain pain pain.

Quarter to ten.

I look at my phone, hoping the journey took as long as it felt.

Knowing, all the while, that I'm going to be stuck here for half an hour.

It's nine nineteen.

The next bus is in twenty six minutes.

No surprise there.

I notice a couple of text messages.

An old friend asking if I can help him out with a bit of weed.

Saying, he's desperate.

He's lost his job.

He is begging me to donate him a chunk of grass.

He does this occasionally.

Lots of people do.

Because I've always got bud.

And I'm a nice guy.

I respond.

I tell him I'll give him weed and meth, if he picks me up halfway.

At this time of night, from out here in the sticks, it's going to take me two hours.

I tell him I'm desperate.

I had a psychotic meltdown at work.

I beg him to help me out, just this once.

He tells me his car broke down.

I try to laugh.

But, it's not funny.

It's fate, pissing on me.

All the gods – the real ones – cursing me in unison.

The plagues that I deserve.

They all arrive.

The consequences of my actions, they exist.

Lost in the mail for two months.

They all arrive at once.

My cosmic letterbox vomiting karma.

I'm broke.

I can't afford a taxi.

Decide to get one anyway.

If I can flag it down, I'll save a couple of dollars.

So I walk out to the major road.

The only one that isn't paved with dirt.

The headlights of passing cars, blinding me.

I fall to the ground on the side of the road, in the grass.

But it doesn't feel like I thought it would.

Like a mattress feels after four straight days high on meth.

The comfort of sleep is absent here.

There is no comfort.

Just the sound of car engines

The pain in my foot.

My swollen mangled hands.

I stop crying.

I yell at the top of my voice.

I curse the gods for cursing me.

Rejecting karma.

Denying my place in the universe.

I yell, “Fuck,” into the warm night air.

A family car is idling beside me, at an intersection.

The father glares at me.

His poor kids.

Having to witness my misery.

How dare I?

I spit at him.

A disgusting combination of saliva, tears and snot.

It travels maybe four or five metres, landing just shy of his car.

I see the kids in the back, peering at me curiously.

And I feel ashamed.

I'm not a junky.

I'm not a little boy.

Little boys don't understand my world.

I am the absolute scum of the earth.

Soon to be homeless, too.

Three hundred dollars short of paying my rent.

The car pulls out.

Slipping into a gap between rivers of traffic.

The kids in the back, a boy and a girl, never look away.

They keep staring at me.

Like I'm some kind of zoo animal.

The major road is too highly populated for someone like me.

I shouldn't be on general display.

I should be hidden away in a back room.

Like the pride of a freak show.

I should be reserved for people cynical enough to feel nothing.

The innocent, they shouldn't have to witness this.

This is my nightmare, not theirs.

I return, defeated, to the bus stop.

And, miraculously, there's a taxi driving straight towards me down the little suburban street.

I wave, frantically.

As it drives past, the little illuminated taxi sign disappears.

I'm hallucinating again.

Another taxi drives down the street.

Foolishly, I let myself believe.

Like a man wandering through a desert.

Four or five times, I fall for the same mirage.

There are illuminated taxi signs on every single car.

Station wagons, utes, sedans, sports cars.

They all look like taxis.

I am cursing myself.

My imagination, exacting revenge on behalf of sadistic gods.

Try to laugh.

It's not funny.

I collapse on the nature strip, beside the bus stop.

Two hours of this.

Two hours of public transport.

Maybe another half hour of walking.

The glass in my foot reflecting every painful step into my mind's eye.

My psychotic psyche, beyond breaking point.

Held together by nothing.

Just as I am about to disintegrate.

On the verge of death.

Necrosis.

Necrosis.

Necrosis.

The phone rings.

It's my mother.

I answer it.

No hesitation.

I confide in her, for a change.

I burden her with my miserable life.

Her delinquent son, always disappointing.

Forever a failure.

I give her more bad news.

And she listens, lovingly.

Tells me it's okay.

She gives me strength.

Even though I know, it's not okay.

It's far from okay.

I need her to tell me she loves me.

That I'm not the disappointment I know I am.

Like she always does.

I don't lie.

When she asks me how I am, I tell her.

Omitting the drugs and the psychosis.

She doesn't know I'm schizophrenic.

Or about the meth.

Alcohol was enough for her.

Cigarettes.

Gay sex.

Ongoing legal problems.

Dealing in high school.

Skanks fucking me in my bedroom, screaming dirty shit through the walls.

Me, blaming her when she kicks them out the fucking door.

Telling her she's a cunt.

Stealing money from her purse.

Failing university.

She never said I fucked up.

But I could see myself, reflected in her eyes.

No matter how much she tried to conceal it.

Obliged, as she was, being a good woman.

I could see her heart breaking with every thing I did.

And I knew she wondered, how.

How such an upstanding woman could have such a deadbeat son.

There's only so much you can apologise, rationalise

Only so many times you can turn the tables.

And call your mother a cunt.

I stopped letting her into my life a long time ago.

Obliged, as I am, to play the part of a good son.

Yet when she asks me how I am, I don't lie.

I tell her I had a breakdown at work.

I tell her I cried in front of everyone.

That I can't take it any more

That I have limits.

She tells me, “It will be okay.”

And I believe her.

I need to.

I can't see myself, in all my disgusting glory, reflected in her pupils.

Her voice is like an embrace.

I am not the absolute scum of the earth.

I am a little boy.

Innocent.

Uncompromising.

Loved unconditionally.

Her voice gives me enough strength to not fall apart.

I want to keep talking to her, until I get back home.

Keep her on the phone until midnight.

Repeating those four words.

“It will be okay.”

It means so much to hear those words.

Even though I know it won't be okay.

Even though I know that it's far from okay.

My house, having rapidly descended into a swamp over the course of my binge.

I have one thing waiting for me, when I hang up the phone.

When I arrive back home.

And that is, the undeniable fact that nothing is okay.

That everything is, in fact, totally fucked.

Still, I need to believe her.

For the first time.

That maybe, somehow, I'm not so bad.

Maybe, there's a new life waiting for me down the road.

A new me.

A good son.

No needles.

No bourbon.

No cock.

But, I need her to say it.

Repeat it. “Everything's going to be okay, sweetheart.”

“It's going to be okay.”

She says it once.

I start crying, silently.

Fresh tears trailing down my face.

Half joy, half misery.

I struggle to keep hold of my fantasy.

That everything will be okay.

In utter despair, as I am.

So intoxicated by hope.

I don't register the next sentence.

She repeats it, “We got you a present.”

I try to see the humour in it.

But it's not funny.

A couple of DVDs or a new set of cutlery or something.

Fat lot of fucking good that's going to do, right now.

I need help, not a new pair of shoes.

It's not my birthday.

It's not Christmas.

There is no special occasion.

It's probably a voucher.

“For graduating from university,” she adds.

A chill goes down my spine.

Begging the universe to throw me a bone.

Asking for mercy.

I just need something.

One little thing.

“Tomorrow, I'm going to transfer a thousand dollars into your account,” she says.

I almost smile.

But I buried happiness long ago.

All I feel is relief.

Her timing is perfect.

“Thank you,” I say.

I want to tell her I love her.

How much it means to me.

But then she'd know I was broke.

And she'd ask me where all the money went.

We say our goodbyes.

Hang up.

The night isn't as dark as it was.

I'm not going to be homeless.

Now, I can pay the rent.

It's nothing short of a miracle.

I look up at the stars.

The tears stop flowing.

It's going to be okay.

Okay.

Okay.

The phone rings.

It's my friend, Chris.

He tells me he's nicked his mum's car.

She's passed out drunk.

I smile, as I hang up the phone.

The stars are brighter, still.

I construct constellations.

Every shape in the universe.

An all-encompassing parade.

People and animals.

Inanimate things.

Machines.

I imagine myself up there.

With the planets.

And the galaxies.

Maybe, maybe, it's going to be okay.

Not beautiful.

Not happy.

Just okay.

That's good enough for me.

All I need is a thread to keep me suspended.

These little miracles, they're more than enough.

I thank God for what I do not deserve.

I want to promise that I'll be a better person.

But I stopped promising God a long time ago.

No point making promises you can't keep.

It's better just to say, “Thank you.”

I wipe my tears from my face.

The bus arrives.

I leap out onto the road, in front of it.

Waving my arms, like someone marooned on a desert island.

The bus driver looks at me like I'm a fucking idiot.

There's nobody else on-board.

I'm probably the only passenger he's had all year.

I lie down on the seats reserved for disabled passengers.

Stretch out.

Relieve my aching tweaker spine.

Stare up through the window at the stars.

Keep telling myself it'll be okay.

They're not going to amputate my thumb.

After I finish off the remaining meth, that's it.

No more for at least a year.

Hopefully forever.

No more weed, either.

Hopefully.

I don't make promises to myself.

Stopped doing that ages ago.

It's depressing, failing.

So I don't set myself any goals.

Better that way.

The journey is excruciatingly long.

Massive gum trees rushing past the stars.

The radio playing classic hits from the seventies.

Jefferson Starship.

Jimi Hendrix.

It's noise.

I listen, joylessly.

Finally, we arrive at Ringwood station.

One of East Melbourne's finest Junky convention centres.

Heroin addicts, mostly.

Lingering 24-7.

Scoring

Shooting in toilets.

Robbing unsuspecting folk, who don't know where they are.

Stabbing people who refuse to give them money.

Being chased by police.

I avoid Ringwood.

Because I look like a junky.

Because I am a junky absolute scum piece of shit.

And the cops, they ask me to roll up my sleeves.

Fucking cops, there's two of them waiting near the bus terminal.

A woman, blonde/pretty, and a guy who looks like a real fucker.

I try not to look at them, but then I think: would normal people avoid looking?

So I look at them.

But I do it wrong.

I look at them like someone trying not to look.

And, sure enough, they follow me – at a distance – onto the platform of the station.

The woman turns out to be the fucker.

She keeps staring at me.

I'm terrified of being confronted.

The state of my arms and my criminal history incriminate me sufficiently.

But it's more than that.

Any other day, I'd stand up to them if they decided to pick on me.

Make my standard discrimination declaration.

Indignant, self-righteous, yet respectful enough to not warrant arrest.

I know my rights.

They know how to fuck with me, the cops.

I know how to fuck with them too.

Just not today.

I'd snap.

Say something wrong.

The wrong expression on my face.

The wrong body language.

I'd get hysterical.

Crying.

Muttering incoherently.

Swearing at them.

And, it'd just get worse from there.

Once they've got you on the hook, they've got you.

I'd end up spending the night in a holding cell.

Or being sectioned to a fucking psych ward.

A mental hospital in Ringwood.

Might as well be dead if that happens.

They keep psychotics for months.

Years, sometimes.

And I wouldn't last a day.

I keep glancing back at them, following me.

Every glance makes me more suspicious.

I try to stop looking.

Try to relax.

Appear casual.

Walking with a severe limp.

My eyes bloodshot from crying.

Lips cracked, peeling.

My brain like a David Lynch movie, in reverse.

My paranoid descent, progressively illogical.

Glancing, like a puzzle being disassembled.

Junky, the scum of the earth.

I struggle to imitate a single human trait.

The more I try, the less human I become.

I sit down on a bench.

My predators, pursuing me for my own protection.

They don't follow me through the turn-style.

I lean back, just enough to see where they are.

I see them hunched over another junky scum-bag, ripping her into pieces.

Bone and bits of flesh flying through the air.

Their faces, dribbling with her guts.

The woman, she stops and looks at me.

Her blood-beard dripping onto her uniform.

My heart beating so fast, the contractions blend into each other.

A wavering hum, constant and monotonous like a dial tone.

The train arrives.

I get on, careful not to look back.

See them out of my periphery as I sit down.

Mr. and Mrs. Public Servant, covered head to toe in junky bits.

Licking their lips.

I don't look at them.

I stop breathing.

My heartbeat shifts from bi-tonal to a single note.

The note steadily climbs pitch, until it is a squealing screech.

Blending with the sound of the wheels of the train.

I turn to face them.

The sound of metal on metal, piercing my eardrums.

I say, “Fuck.”

Start breathing again.

Slow my heartbeat down.

And repeat, “Fuck.”

I laugh.

It's funny, for a second.

Then, I remember my hands.

There's no point denying what I'm going to do.

As soon as I get home I'm going to attempt a shot.

Even though that might mean losing a finger.

I can't throw away my meth.

And I can't prolong this binge.

I need to do it all.

I start to panic.

Re-assure myself.

It's going to be okay.

I'll be careful, this time.

Take no chances.

No half in, half out shots.

Only inject if I register perfectly.

Take my time.

Hydrate.

It's going to be okay.

But, it's not.

Not really.

I'm going to have to split it into at least three syringes.

And there's no way in fuck I'm going to get away with that.

I look at my hands.

The left has returned to it's factory pre-set condition.

Except for the holes, where I dug out the infarcts.

I notice something I didn't see before.

Instantly assume the worse.

Then I realise what it is.

There's blood dribbling out of the holes.

Confirmation that blood is circulating.

That I'm not going to lose my finger.

I won't have to dig any more dead black flesh out, either.

Unless, until, I do another shot in that arm.

Then all bets are off.

Get off the train at my journey's halfway mark.

Stumble anxiously along the platform, muttering to myself.

“Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, mother fucking cunt.”

Do the stairs one step at a time, wincing in pain all the way to street level.

My friend is waiting for me.

I fall into the car.

The passenger seat is pushed right back.

The backrest is down.

He's set it up like that, because he knows.

I don't look at him.

Keep my eyes closed tight.

Still muttering my obscene mantra.

“Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, mother fucking cunt.”

He starts the car.

“You okay, man?”

I look at him, and sigh.

Everything's going to be okay.

I want to laugh.

But it's not funny.

We stop at the pub on the way home.

Because the fucking bottle shop is closed.

I buy him a beer.

Scam a cigarette off him.

Sit down and savour both of them.

Smoke, drink, smoke, drink, mother fucking smoke.

There's a group of violent-looking drunken ass-holes nearby.

Yelling their conversation.

So everyone can hear about the time they “stabbed that cunt.”

I hate them because I hate myself.

Tonight, I realise that I'm no better.

After half a schooner, I start to relax a little bit.

I talk to Chris like I've never talked to anyone.

I am honest.

I tell him I need to go to rehab.

That I need to stop everything.

That I was happy before all the drugs.

And the booze.

Back when my left hand was the same size and colour as the right.

When I had healthy limbs, and a clear conscience.

I thank him repeatedly for saving me.

Even though I've had no time for him recently.

He tells me he came over to my house, when I was drunk.

It's no surprise, I don't remember.

Apparently, I said he could drop by two days ago for a bit of weed.

Then when he got there I took advantage of him.

I told him he had to inject me or I wouldn't give it to him.

Because I was too drunk to do it myself.

My hands, he said, were shaking.

I had a girl there, with me.

10 years younger than me.

I asked her too, he said.

They both refused.

So I told him to fuck off.

I tell him that he saved my fingers, maybe even my hand.

I would've asked for it in the left.

And, one more shot in the left and I'd've been totally fucked.

I've come so close to doing myself permanent irreversible damage.

I've been lingering on the verge of death for too long.

Tempting fate.

Gambling with my remaining years.

I feel like a right piece of shit.

Like the absolute scum of the universe.

That's what junk is, I realise

It's a substitute for everything.

Friends.

Family

Joy.

Yourself.

Junk: your substitute life, crammed into a barrel.

I thank him again, and again.

I drink my beer, like it's been ten years since I've had a drink.

Like it's my first beer.

I cherish every lungful of smoke.

I tell him, “This is the last drink and the last smoke.”

I tell him, “No more.”

I make promises I intend to keep.

We get back in the car.

The first thing I do back home is feed the cats.

Then I take care of Chris.

He doesn't hang around.

I don't blame him.

The place is fucked.

I feel uncomfortable here and it's my house.

Besides, I'd rather he didn't see me IV.

He doesn't like needles.

Or chemicals.

He refuses the free meth I offered him.

Give him half my weed.

Thank him a couple more times as I see him out.

Close the front door and head straight for my gear.

Prepare a 50 mg shot, leaving me about a quarter gram.

Worried about the state of my veins.

Another massive hit might collapse one or set of the psychosis again.

I don't have to have it all in the next 24 hours.

I should pace myself.

Prepare myself for withdrawal.

Do another four 60 mg shots, or five 50s.

Spread out over a fortnight.

There's no rush.

I have to be careful.

I delay the shot.

Hydrate.

Drink three pints of water.

Wait until I piss them out.

Drink another pint, just to be safe.

Sit down at my computer.

Take deep meditative breaths.

Try to work out which arm I should use.

The right hand is swollen and darker red than the left.

But the left was the one with necrotic infarcts.

It's not a difficult decision.

Swelling or amputation?

I do the right arm.

Try the minor vein in my crook.

Haven't touched it for a couple of weeks.

It never works any more

But, I don't have a choice.

The remaining major on my right arm is riddled with clots.

I figure I've got a better chance with the minor.

Now that it's had some time to recover.

Penetrating the vein is very painful.

I do it imperceptibly slow, as slow as I can.

Minimise the pain.

Trick my body into not rejecting it.

Still, I get nothing.

And applying pressure on the plunger just makes it hurt more.

I don't panic.

I remain perfectly calm as I move up the vein.

Pull out as slowly and carefully as I went in.

But I can't register.

I try three different spots.

Fucking minor vein.

Not going to be usable for a long time, if ever.

I drink three pints of water.

Move on to the major.

Old faithful.

The biggest vein.

It's a veteran.

Received maybe half of all my shots.

That's got to be at least a thousand.

I can clots inside it with my fingertip.

At least half a dozen bumps.

The vein is swollen, too.

Thrombosed.

I attempt a shot above Clot City.

Rarely works that high, though.

And tonight is no different.

I fail to register, twice.

Go down-town.

If this doesn't work, I'll end up shooting the other arm.

And it's too soon for that.

I focus all of my energy.

I pray to every god.

Beg fate.

Plead with karma.

I push in, straight through the bottom clot.

There's a considerable amount of pain initially.

Too much resistance, too.

Then the pain stops.

And the needle slides into position.

I pull back, and get a clot.

Get a little bubble, too.

I'm not half in, though.

Just pulled back too hard.

The vein is hardly flowing.

The bubble – pressure, not air – disappears as the vein catches up with me.

I pull back so slowly that I'm not even sure that I am pulling back.

I have to monitor the units of clotted blood versus the units of water.

The blood cots are so thick, they don't mix with the water.

They just sit there, on the needle side of the barrel.

I ensure that the volume of blood has increased.

Start pushing the plunger in.

Accidentally move the syringe a fraction of a millimetre.

Feel some increased tension against the plunger after emptying ten units.

Shift around, re-register, and push in.

This happens six or seven times.

My hands are steady.

The passage between the remaining clots must be microscopic.

Smaller than the eye of a 29.

I don't panic.

I take my time.

It is the longest delivery I've ever done.

Takes at least five minutes, after registering.

The effects of the drug kick in accordingly.

It's excruciating, the rate of delivery.

I struggle to remain patient.

The rush builds up slower than a snail across a football field.

I actually like it, I think.

The cock-tease method.

Anticipation is heightened.

And it's much easier to cater for potential mistakes.

The dose is pretty low, though.

Get a slight rush, only.

For all my efforts.

Need to do 60 mg shots, minimum.

Anyway, I feel fantastic.

I don't need the rush.

I like both, but I prefer the plateau.

Much rather be high for six hours, than rush really hard for one hour.

Of course the best of both worlds ain't too bad.

I pull out, slow, careful to mimic the exact angle I went in.

It's a lot harder to do it slow now that I'm tweaked, but I manage.

Stand up and elevate the arm.

Press a bit of cotton into it.

Close my eyes.

Thank God.

Thank fate.

Thank karma.

Sit back down at the computer and put some music on.

The Lion's Roar, by contemporary Swedish folk band First Aid Kit.

Slow music is better on uppers, if you aren't dancing.

I tend to write, when I'm tweaked.

And a fast beat fucks up my thought process.

Meth is fast enough already.

I inspect my arm to discover that the vein has disappeared.

“Fuck,” how did that happen?

I flex the arm, pumping my hand into a fist.

I can save it, I've done it before.

Sure enough, it appears.

A blue line running the length of my arm.

I stop flexing, and – within a minute – it is gone.

This goes on for some time.

I duck into the laundry and grab a clean sock.

Flexing and pumping all the way.

Cut the toes off the sock, creating a tube of material.

Slid it onto the arm, across the vein in question.

Monitor the vein and re-adjust the sock accordingly.

Voila: my home-made pressure stocking.

The fucking thing is so tight, it reduces circulation to my hand.

Still, I'd rather keep the vein than avoid more swelling.

So, I leave it on.

When I stop using, the swelling will go down anyway.

I hope.

Either way, I can live with it.

Doesn't bother me that much.

It's just a cosmetic concern.

Doesn't have any serious health consequences.

If I lose the basilic however, on top of the cephalic, I'm fucked.

I've damaged the minors.

Both the deep and the superficial veins.

Probably collapsed one or two as well.

They aren't capable of compensating for another major.

Delivering enough blood to avoid acute necrosis/gangrene is possible.

But the arm will be weak.

It will ache.

And my skin will be a couple shades of red darker.

I keep an eye on it.

After an hour, I take off the sock.

The basilic doesn't fade.

It lives to see another day.

And so do I.

I examine my hand.

The right is the worst it's ever been.

Thrombosed, edemic.

Patches of red and white skin.

My fingers, throbbing and tingling.

Dark patches under the skin on both thumbs

Over a dozen small holes from stanley knives, sewing needles and safety pins.

I sit down and start writing a new report.

The first sentence is, “What goes up must come down.”

Not 100% sure who said it.

I think it was Newton.

I'll Google it later, to double-check.

Doesn't matter, really.

The point is, if you get really high there's always a price to pay.

There are highs and there are lows.

This, is Gravity.
 
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This is better suited for Blogs, yet you put some good effort into it so I will leave it open.
 
I have to disagree with you, about this being more suited to Blogs.

I'd have to split it into at least 50 separate entries.

[rant]

Junk Mail is considerably longer than Huxley's paperback trip report, Doors of Perception; and at least a hundred times longer than the average trip report posted on this forum. It's novel length. Yet, it's a trip report. It's not a scientific report. It's a psychological report. There is no specification, that I'm aware of, that we should all be clinical and detached in our documentation. In another methamphetamine thread, you said this:

This is what a decent trip report looks like. It can be used as a reference. It is what one seeks to read when they read the Trip Reports Directory. It gives one a clearer idea of what the effects of the chemical are like.

I get private messages all the time from moderators, senior staff, long-time members and people who have specifically joined the site in order to contact me and tell me how much they loved reading my reports. I have regular readers, who tune in and comment on everything I submit. You have what you think is a "decent" trip report. You have your definition. And, I have mine. Personally, I prefer the philosophical/psychological style of trip report rather than the scientific/chemical. There should be a balance, of course, and some of my reports are - admittedly - skewed too heavily towards the psyche. But, people like them. They clearly function on some level. They, undeniably, have some appeal. You might not like them, personally. But that's not what modding forums is about. You should be objective.

I think we need to be honest about all the effects of drugs, as far as harm reduction goes. This seven part report focuses heavily on the long-term effects of intravenous methamphetamine use, on psychosis, on withdrawal, addiction and the psychological landscape that it produces. I'm not sure how you could possibly argue that this is in any way less important than chemical analysis. Laboratories can analyze the effects of drugs. Users, like Mr. Huxley, are capable of providing so much more. If Doors of Perception was clinical, it wouldn't have sold. Because, evidently, demonstrably, there is a demand for more. I'm attempting to redefine the trip report. Not hold anything back. Not to be selective. Just tell it how it is.

The report that you claimed was "what a decent trip report looks like" has practically no function in terms of harm reduction. If anything it potentially glorifies the use of methamphetamine. Since it is clinical, and therefore a selective and incomplete representation of amphetamine use, readers might underestimate the drug's considerable potential for harm. This is a harm reduction forum. SO drug dedicated sub-forums such as this, should prioritize harm reduction over everything else. We're not a scientific community. We're a drug-safe community. Your ideal trip report doesn't make any sense to me.

I have caught lots of hell from people who are unhappy with their threads being closed. They are only closed when they are not a useful addition to the forum. We do not accept threads which contain little more than babble. Keep this in mind.

I disagree, regarding some of the reports that have disappeared. People come on here and they take the time to compose descriptions of their drug-use. Why close them? If people don't want to read them, they won't. And the threads will slip down into oblivion. There's not that much traffic in here. How many reports get posted per day? Five or ten?

Don't dictate what people want, let the board work it out for itself.

And, please, after closing people's threads, and - by your own admission - upsetting them, don't describe their efforts as:

little more than babble

...Thanks.

[/rant]

*4EA continues working on Junk Mail, Parts 3 & 7*
 
i felt as if you were living my life, or i was living yours? idk.
never stop writing man you got a gift, your literature grabs ahold of me and im there, with you, i am you.

love reading your reports brotha.

back to reality..


-KING :sus:
 
Wow man, just wow. I rarely come on bluelight and read trip reports but I am so glad I came over here and clicked on your thread.

You're writing invoked a bit of an emotional response in me. I have never tried meth but I was a heavy user of MDPV and I remember fucking my veins pretty bad in a short period of time. I remember the fucking stress of trying to hit a vein, the frustration, the anticipation.

I most sincerely hope that you can get out of the hole your in. I feel for you, I really do. For whatever reason, I really dig the way you formatted it. It's written from a very unique perspective, makes me really want to write a trip report about my last speed binge on apvp in a similar format.

I wish you the best, I really do. Great trip report man, I really got drawn right in. Just wow.
 
So awesome. I was going to send to a family member to read as an inside perspective, your mind on meth etc, and then i realized that you mention the constantly staring and inspecting your hands and they have see me do this to much for me to send it safely lol. They dont know.

I have tweaked without discovery for months so far and usually i can maintain but one thing i always do is ask everybody around me if my hands look red and my knuckles blue or is it just the light. I can stare at my hands for hours. I just cant tell myself if its real or not

Also i can see there is a big difference in intensity between the insufflated meth binge experience and the IV one. My binges are for kids compared.

I dont see imperfections, but my biggest torture is the VasoC when everything gets cold it randomly feels like somebody stabbed your hand with a blunt knife after touching something randomly, you never know when its going to happen. Its quite difficult to hide random loud screams of agony and cursing in the middle of the night. I wish i knew how to stop that shit.

Thanks bud and I hope you keep well.
 
I really wish you the best with all your endeavors, you're a good person in a bad place. Keep writing, it's very strong and I consider it a warning for myself as well.
 
How is my meth junkie mate? Us meth heads need to stick together more.. except when we're trying to go sober.
 
First comment on bluelight, I just wanted to say this is an amazing series, and I've enjoyed reading this more than pretty much anything that I can think of.

I think I missed part 3 though, was it on the same thread as 2? I'd appreciate a link, if possible.
 
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