anjalimaya
Greenlighter
that I have NEVER shared with anyone because I am intent on maintaining my life as a PhD student with a full-time job and friends that don't think I am going to rob their house due to the stigma attached to heroin usage - especially. I needed an outlet not a regular blog where people that don't get will read it. I need feedback from "people of my nature" that get it. And I mean REALLY get it - don't just sympathize "oh you poor damaged person" but understand the love/hate aspect of losing control to a drug...and constantly for the rest of your life fighting to maintain control over what many writers have called "their true love". Opium was once called "God's own medicine". I welcome any feedback. Its not so much a poem as it is my story in verse - when I was kicking my third habit (long habits) as I have been on and off relationship with heroin. I fight it everyday and it seems every heroin addict no matter where I move - we smell each other out. And every strung out user needs/wants a partner so they don't care if I get strung out again...and that is my current situation right now...so that is why I am sharing the most personal writing here. Hopefully having some people that don't want me to be their junkie partner - even if they still use. 'Cause a junkie partner? Will sell you out for junk that is why they need someone that has been strung out but is fighting it...eventually, we all give in. AND I REFUSE TO GIVE IN THIS TIME.
So here is my 20 days clean story in verse, hopefully it doesn't bore anyone
“All My Evil Through the Needle…”
Title borrowed from a Queens of the Stone Age lyric...
Written on April 20, 2009
I hear its name so I play the game with my mind
Its baggage is still not unpacked up there, undo the addictive bind.
I am so scared to let it go completely, who will I then be?
I think I smell its lingering presence, it is what I knew as its effervesence
But it is the personification of my mutiliation
I am providing it with its charming personality
Because it had to at least like me, at least love me
Unlike my family and supposed friends
My human connection is long since dead
But maybe perhaps it was so I’d never stop to see
What it was stealing from me
My cunning enemy.
My constant companion.
My valuable friend.
You left me abandoned.
Arms bloodied and my fragile ego left to nothing
Here with an empty needle and an empty spoon
I know I’ve reached the end of this black-tar road to ruin
But don’t you dare vocalize that
Because you will be seeing my back
On my way out your door to score
The special reunion with my little sack
Doing nothing to get my dignity intact
In fact, what is that?
Don’t blame me!
It’s the heroin, you see!
It made me dopesick so I was simply forced to pick
And why would it be you?
Or you?
Or the mother that knew the extent of my mental torment
But still thought it was her that needed to vent
About her broken heart, how heroin blasted her life apart.
I just rolled my eyes and asked why would I?
When there is always more heroin to buy?
But for me personally? I know it is because I still can’t see
My distorted reality and how I created it so severely while smiling so serenely
My psychotic intentions and disturbing admission
Into the pit of narcotizing tradition
And to those who actually had eyes to see what I made myself out to be
The torn-apart demon I’d have to be to push my demented illusion
My utter confusion
Into my collapsed vein.
It didn’t matter that it provoked a little resistance, that familiar pain.
Everyone pays a toll and everyone has a soul
To sell while nodding off on that toilet-seat throne
A needle dangling out, and once again, I sit alone.
I knew I couldn’t acknowledge my creation of this acid rain
And how I love that dark liquid certifying me insane.
Like all efficiently abused humans, I fed my delusion
I nurtured my seclusion to deepen my self-hatred contusion
Upon the vacated chambers of my empty heart
It’s been a mere 20 days we have been apart
This time, that is.
But who is counting?
Besides my self-loathing waiting for what I always did
And relapse? Simply a part of this biz.
I already have the chronic membership card of failure
My trust in self just a shard of what I was before, if that was anything.
By definition, circles have no end.
And I am just a heroin addict in need of a friend.
I’ve been without any, for years, that became many
Or maybe I’ve never had a friend with intentions genuine
That has been where I have been
Besides my brother and father, but all the rest?
I will just prove to disappoint them ‘cause it is what I do…
Ask my family, they will tell you this is true.
Nobody has been hearing my scream, but please don’t dare dream
That it isn’t coming from me as I am drowning in the narcotic stream
And I am left precariously handling truths I stole
And no, I cannot yet face my responsibility in this role
That a war I waged for and the sanity I sold for my selfish friend
That doesn’t want my compulsion to mend
That won’t rest until my life is at an end
The death certificate, signed and certified.
She died of a heroin overdose, come on now, are you surprised?
She’s done it already! So don’t be!
‘Cause it seems the farther I get from heroin’s reality,
the memories begin to manifest as my eventuality.
And my junkie ideas of individuality over my perpetrator, my ultimate stimulator
The one I gratefully handed the razor, to kill me if needed
My deep-seated hatred disguised as true love
I gave you my heart, my veins, and my skin
And all the blood flowing within
My life force turned into a sacrifice source
But of course, my delusion and insanity is fully developed
So still I tried to successfully embody the role
Of a heroin addict in control
What a laugh, I know!
I mean, everyone knows junkies have no soul!
As my mother would most likely say as she turned to face me to deface me
To try to replace all of me into nothing but a junkie that has ruined her life
We always become her victim knife.
And our illness, our addiction, all to support her ideas of being a victim
And her case for martyrdom. Oh, so much fun.
Still I manage to retort: What track marks? What needle? What busted vein? What blood stain? Whatever, you can’t see my ritual pain.
I put on my trusty sweater with over long sleeves today
Mother, I won’t sit and stay so I can be molded by your clay
So you can play the game of who is more deluded. Who wins today?
I’m relegating myself to somewhere secluded.
It is with a sigh of relief that I can finally submit to my conducive bloodletting
What I liked to call my daily wedding
To my chosen prison, my chosen warden, my chosen derision.
All with my permission. No one else’s decision.
And you couldn’t change my mind, when I was set on my chosen kind
But I wanted a path, a way to unwind.
Unshackle and mentally tackle,
My very own personal Goliath but I know I am no King David
Just a sick little girl invaded.
By my master, my King, my deity
For whom I prostrated on my knees to the floor
I forced myself to ignore
That I was happily knocking on death’s door
I did this too many times, and I would have done more.
My sweet reward?
I end up nursing and hiding yet another open sore.
But I am still sitting, 20 days clean, my chosen God, my chosen cross
Not yet manifested as that constant baggie I savagely protected and completely injected
Successfully, my guilt again circumvented.
Thankfully, today I haven’t allowed to be infected.
But I have no structure to be tested and as my history suggested
My confrontation of my obsession will need assimilation into a new order
A new education, a creation of a clear border.
I don’t want anything specific, just less of the horrific.
Because my sweetest friend, my mortal enemy
Soon, it will be whispering how much it is missing me
My abcessed devotion to my life corrosion
Even though it is in me, mixed with my chemistry
Heroin made me return to its church religiously
My own better form of worship, a personality retail
Synthetic happiness on sale! While buying rigs through the mail.
But I need to submit to the reality refill
Without running to cook down a hillbilly heroin pill
The pharmaceutical medicine in competition with my street drug insulin
Yep, I used it to get well, to wear my mask of “normal”, cast my sanity spell
But I’ve been unmasked as a liar, a thief, and a cheat.
I know my sticky treat has its ways of securing me an early entry
Into life’s only guarantee…
Death, our one true inevitability.
But I am showing up to plead, please…oh please,
Take this needle away from me. I am sick of it, finally.
I am asking you, the people of my nature
Help me to suture up my opioid future.
I am not a soldier, a sober trooper.
No, relatives of this emptiness
Please be without my family’s hatefulness
‘Cause I no longer want to condescend
the ability of the addict to transcend
this clever homicidal friend
like I usually would have been.
I don’t have the strength anymore to pretend
That the empty promises of the fix does not offend
Who and what I truly want to believe I am.
So here is my 20 days clean story in verse, hopefully it doesn't bore anyone
“All My Evil Through the Needle…”
Title borrowed from a Queens of the Stone Age lyric...
Written on April 20, 2009
I hear its name so I play the game with my mind
Its baggage is still not unpacked up there, undo the addictive bind.
I am so scared to let it go completely, who will I then be?
I think I smell its lingering presence, it is what I knew as its effervesence
But it is the personification of my mutiliation
I am providing it with its charming personality
Because it had to at least like me, at least love me
Unlike my family and supposed friends
My human connection is long since dead
But maybe perhaps it was so I’d never stop to see
What it was stealing from me
My cunning enemy.
My constant companion.
My valuable friend.
You left me abandoned.
Arms bloodied and my fragile ego left to nothing
Here with an empty needle and an empty spoon
I know I’ve reached the end of this black-tar road to ruin
But don’t you dare vocalize that
Because you will be seeing my back
On my way out your door to score
The special reunion with my little sack
Doing nothing to get my dignity intact
In fact, what is that?
Don’t blame me!
It’s the heroin, you see!
It made me dopesick so I was simply forced to pick
And why would it be you?
Or you?
Or the mother that knew the extent of my mental torment
But still thought it was her that needed to vent
About her broken heart, how heroin blasted her life apart.
I just rolled my eyes and asked why would I?
When there is always more heroin to buy?
But for me personally? I know it is because I still can’t see
My distorted reality and how I created it so severely while smiling so serenely
My psychotic intentions and disturbing admission
Into the pit of narcotizing tradition
And to those who actually had eyes to see what I made myself out to be
The torn-apart demon I’d have to be to push my demented illusion
My utter confusion
Into my collapsed vein.
It didn’t matter that it provoked a little resistance, that familiar pain.
Everyone pays a toll and everyone has a soul
To sell while nodding off on that toilet-seat throne
A needle dangling out, and once again, I sit alone.
I knew I couldn’t acknowledge my creation of this acid rain
And how I love that dark liquid certifying me insane.
Like all efficiently abused humans, I fed my delusion
I nurtured my seclusion to deepen my self-hatred contusion
Upon the vacated chambers of my empty heart
It’s been a mere 20 days we have been apart
This time, that is.
But who is counting?
Besides my self-loathing waiting for what I always did
And relapse? Simply a part of this biz.
I already have the chronic membership card of failure
My trust in self just a shard of what I was before, if that was anything.
By definition, circles have no end.
And I am just a heroin addict in need of a friend.
I’ve been without any, for years, that became many
Or maybe I’ve never had a friend with intentions genuine
That has been where I have been
Besides my brother and father, but all the rest?
I will just prove to disappoint them ‘cause it is what I do…
Ask my family, they will tell you this is true.
Nobody has been hearing my scream, but please don’t dare dream
That it isn’t coming from me as I am drowning in the narcotic stream
And I am left precariously handling truths I stole
And no, I cannot yet face my responsibility in this role
That a war I waged for and the sanity I sold for my selfish friend
That doesn’t want my compulsion to mend
That won’t rest until my life is at an end
The death certificate, signed and certified.
She died of a heroin overdose, come on now, are you surprised?
She’s done it already! So don’t be!
‘Cause it seems the farther I get from heroin’s reality,
the memories begin to manifest as my eventuality.
And my junkie ideas of individuality over my perpetrator, my ultimate stimulator
The one I gratefully handed the razor, to kill me if needed
My deep-seated hatred disguised as true love
I gave you my heart, my veins, and my skin
And all the blood flowing within
My life force turned into a sacrifice source
But of course, my delusion and insanity is fully developed
So still I tried to successfully embody the role
Of a heroin addict in control
What a laugh, I know!
I mean, everyone knows junkies have no soul!
As my mother would most likely say as she turned to face me to deface me
To try to replace all of me into nothing but a junkie that has ruined her life
We always become her victim knife.
And our illness, our addiction, all to support her ideas of being a victim
And her case for martyrdom. Oh, so much fun.
Still I manage to retort: What track marks? What needle? What busted vein? What blood stain? Whatever, you can’t see my ritual pain.
I put on my trusty sweater with over long sleeves today
Mother, I won’t sit and stay so I can be molded by your clay
So you can play the game of who is more deluded. Who wins today?
I’m relegating myself to somewhere secluded.
It is with a sigh of relief that I can finally submit to my conducive bloodletting
What I liked to call my daily wedding
To my chosen prison, my chosen warden, my chosen derision.
All with my permission. No one else’s decision.
And you couldn’t change my mind, when I was set on my chosen kind
But I wanted a path, a way to unwind.
Unshackle and mentally tackle,
My very own personal Goliath but I know I am no King David
Just a sick little girl invaded.
By my master, my King, my deity
For whom I prostrated on my knees to the floor
I forced myself to ignore
That I was happily knocking on death’s door
I did this too many times, and I would have done more.
My sweet reward?
I end up nursing and hiding yet another open sore.
But I am still sitting, 20 days clean, my chosen God, my chosen cross
Not yet manifested as that constant baggie I savagely protected and completely injected
Successfully, my guilt again circumvented.
Thankfully, today I haven’t allowed to be infected.
But I have no structure to be tested and as my history suggested
My confrontation of my obsession will need assimilation into a new order
A new education, a creation of a clear border.
I don’t want anything specific, just less of the horrific.
Because my sweetest friend, my mortal enemy
Soon, it will be whispering how much it is missing me
My abcessed devotion to my life corrosion
Even though it is in me, mixed with my chemistry
Heroin made me return to its church religiously
My own better form of worship, a personality retail
Synthetic happiness on sale! While buying rigs through the mail.
But I need to submit to the reality refill
Without running to cook down a hillbilly heroin pill
The pharmaceutical medicine in competition with my street drug insulin
Yep, I used it to get well, to wear my mask of “normal”, cast my sanity spell
But I’ve been unmasked as a liar, a thief, and a cheat.
I know my sticky treat has its ways of securing me an early entry
Into life’s only guarantee…
Death, our one true inevitability.
But I am showing up to plead, please…oh please,
Take this needle away from me. I am sick of it, finally.
I am asking you, the people of my nature
Help me to suture up my opioid future.
I am not a soldier, a sober trooper.
No, relatives of this emptiness
Please be without my family’s hatefulness
‘Cause I no longer want to condescend
the ability of the addict to transcend
this clever homicidal friend
like I usually would have been.
I don’t have the strength anymore to pretend
That the empty promises of the fix does not offend
Who and what I truly want to believe I am.
