BORN TO USE

The disease crept in with the new dawn,
with a slap seemingly from god's own hand.
I was awake...the smell of cat urine and lilac filled the air...
“I'm fucking sick," I groaned to no one.

With the reality of my 46 too-far-gone years I reached for the wake up bag.
"Let me up, Monkey," I whispered to the old brown dog.
I wished I could do something more than make him comfortable.
The infection had taken him over, still his heart filled his eyes,
those big beautiful junkyard eyes that bleed brown sorrow,
enough beauty and sadness to drown the whole Human Race
in a sick little dog's eyes....

In the kitchen I washed a blackened table spoon,
reached into my pocket for the glass rig
and nearly fell down the basement stairs.
As I reached the bottom I counted the hours in my head--
"8 to 9; 9 to 10; 10 to 11.”
My dyslexia made me count this tedious routine a thousand times a day.
I finally arrived at "1:00 pm, London time, and gently opened the crystalline bag.

As always, I wondered what she was doing at that very moment.

I filled the cloudy glass with water:
"Maybe lunch"...

The syringe shot a tiny stream into the silver spoon;
I cooked the brown powder and water till it bubbled.

I could feel her walking around like an amputated leg,
still itching 3000 miles away.
I tied off my wrist with my belt and pumped my hand,
coaxing the nearly collapsed veins to the surface.

"Maybe she's thinking of me right now…"

I dug the needle into a spider vein and cocked back a little;
the blood and smack formed a holy union in the chamber.

"Maybe she's with him…"

I untied my wrist and pushed off,
and like a desperate police car prayer
I tried to tell myself
she didn't matter.

Then the rush....

Every junkie lives for those few seconds; the warm jets,the sonic blanket,.
the silent drowning of everything that means anything.
I fell back into the amber brick and pulled the gimmick from my hand--
a quick rinse...
A little leftover metallic blood tasted like frost on the tip of my tongue.


"She can't hurt you now," the heroin angels whispered.

Still, her jasmine hair
and suicide eyes
burned like oblivion.

Her ghost haunted the vacant day away.

I drank dollar store tea, rolled cigarettes and stroked the dying animal's chin.

Happy Ending by David Rat
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