what the fuck is wrong with me

.my relationship with heroin.  it’s like everything else in my life i’ve ever loved, aluring and malignant, orgasmic and abusive counter-culture, taboo.. like every exboyfriend i’ve ever had.  so bad it’s sexy.  heroin gets me hot. it’s not just a kick, it’s a way of life(Bourrous, thank you)  it feels so good, but it’s hurting me so much.  i focus on the minutes it gives me pleasure instead of the lifetime of pain it supplies.  i overlook the dopesick and the complete poverty…instead romantising it in my head.  glamour junky…such a fucking rockstar. it’s hard to leave it, just like it’s hard to leave your abusive lover.  you hate it, but you love it so much. heroin is almost a person to me. people say it all the time–it’s my wife, it’s my life (reed-thank you)  so many people i respect and admire have been junkies. william s bourrous, lou reed, whom i’ve already mentioned. kurt cobain an layne staley, brad nowell, all incredible artists, who will sadly and predictably be known more for their habits than their impact on the music scene.  jim carol, janis joplin.  creative, caring, deeply wounded people.  intelligent, compasionate, misunderstood.  heroin has a personality people like that gravitate towards…people like me.at first it numbs the pain, it makes everyday living livable. i don’t know how, but it greases the gears, makes everything flow…wow, i wonder why people make such huge deal out of it.  iit just seems to put in a neat complete package all the things that make my life my life.  being misunderstood and villianized, being just as bad as they say you are.  forcing yourself to do things you wish you didn’t want to do.  being helpless, but being a complete cop out at the same time.

dope is the love of my life i wish i’d never met. all the bad times will never matter, because you suffer for who you love. that’s my sickness, i guess.

oblivious

  oblivious
 
i see it
in  my hand
full of love, hate, escape
i see it
and my mouth waters
my death wish, my soul mate
 
i see it
feel it’s familiar sting
that pain is bliss to me
i watch for the rush
my life’s blood
and i push down
and i bow down
give in, again
just one more time
 
my head falls back
it all falls away
sublime, emptiness
silence of the soul
all i crave
 
i sigh, out with all the pain
i don’t need to smile
i don’t care to breath
just be quiet
for this brief moment
let me live this nothing
as much as i can
 
as the sun comes back
to my warm tingly skin
and my crushing reality
sticks it’s teeth back in
 
i breath in deep
and that pressure is back
all that i’m not
all that i lack
 
and once again
without missing a step
i’m out on the hunt
for that momentary death

june 2001, 19 years old…

choice

i lost you

in a sea of blood

i lost you

i sold you

sold my soul

i lost you

tearing my insides  out

sucking out my feeling

i gave it up

gave up on me

before it was real

i gave it away

i lost you

in a plastic bag

i lost you

in a distant haze

it hurt me

to hurt you

to lose you

to choose

i gave it up

numb and scared

i gave up on us

weak and confused

a silent time

a secret of mine

i gave it all away

my pain

my fear

this shame

is all that’s real

i lost you

and that sunny day

morphine won’t dull this pain

i made my choice

this fate is sealed

i met my maker

in boston

and made  my deal

my life i chose

and gave yours instead

on the outside i’m still here

but where it matters

we’re both dead.

more than meets the eye

i’m sure when most people look at me, all they sees is my deep purple tracks and the lost look in my eye suppose they know my whole story. just another junky. right.

but we all have deep waters that run within us. that is why i never think i can judge someone by one action, by one story i hear. you can never guess what’s brought us here.

watching my father beat my mother within inches of life. being five years old, having “the talk” with e.r. doctors, about what’s going to happen after my mommy dies. she didn’t die, thank god.

or how about the standoff with the state police and my father with the shotgun. i’m amazed every day that no one in my family has died yet.

that’s not for lack of trying. police caught my little brother getting ready to hang himself last year. i did my own time in the psych ward for a botched overdose, age 13. (even before i was an addict, that seemed like the best way to go)

practically having to raise my mother, the young, beaten, completely controlled little girl with two kids and no idea what to do. she was always crying, always so scared. to this day still, i hold her hand, tell her she’s done all she could, she’s a good mom, and i love her.

never having enough money to do what we need. repposessed cars, no heat or hot water, no food. all of these things came before my drug problem, and still come every year, as my father’s seasonal work dries up. mom likes to believe she’s helping her addict daughter, and she is, but the truth is, without me and casey, the house would’ve been forclosed on two months ago. so we are all helping each other stand, right now.

some people might think that being an IV heroin addict is the worst of the worst. i’m not so sure. yeah, i’ve done some crazy shit in support of my habbit, but i’d rather be fighting this battle than some of the other’s i’ve had.

the abusive boyfriend who gave me chlamydia three times, each time swearing he wasn’t cheating, wearing me down, and as soon as the condom came off, there i was, so fucking sick again. i know, mostly my fault, but i was 17, and dumb. dealing with two years of emotional abuse, being pushed down so far, being fed cocaine and rolls because my drug dealer boyfriend knew that fuct up girl attract customers. being used as human bait for comerce, i never really got over that one.

the empty space i feel inside where my baby once was. the struggle i deal with each day, after having an abortion almost six years ago.

feeding the cycle of abusive, drug addicted  men in my life, until i finally became the thing i hated most. addict.

playing the part of the abuser, beating and tourturing my baby brother, until he was big enough to beat me back. we love each other more than words can say, but sometimes you are helpless to your genes, your past.

being the friend that will give her life to make your pain go away. the girl everyone has lived with, lived off, loved with and fallen apart on. watching one by one, as my friends abandoned me for bigger and better things, or just wrote me off as “junky kaia”. knowing how it feels to give all  you have to someone you love, and later learning it wasn’t that special after all.

so it’s easy to look at me, or anyone, and think you have them pegged. but you’re just fooling yourself.  there is a reason, right or wrong, for every action in our lives. remember that next time you pass judgement. you don’t know what happened to bring us all to this point.

 

 

the inevidable

(i wasn’t there, so this is just hearsay. you never know, it could be pure fiction)

my girl kristi, is a good hookup of mine. but in the past couple weeks, as i’ve been on and off the clinic, i’ve found a place to score in my hometown, like 2 seconds up the road, so fuck it, right? but i’ve been doing my best to keep in touch w/her.

as you know every junky knows every other junky in a 15 mile radius. it’s good to network, no matter what your business is. so as i was at ellie’s house (the hometown hookup) she got a phone call. it was about dj and andrea.

now, before you get too confused, dj and andrea are kids i’ve know since before dope. we used to do bon fire keggers and e parties, hit raves and sneek into bars in our teen years. only recently did i meet up with dj at a mutual friends house, and we did the subtle junky dance. he had heard rumors about my use, so he sat next to me, close. i had heard the same about him, so i made the sly move to roll up my sleeve a little, under the table. he saw what he was looking for, looked up at me and said “wanna go get some food?” i’ve used my tracks more than once to hook up with other junkies. it’s better than asking out loud “you still mainlining, like i heard?”  what a party killer that would be.

so since then me and casey have been hanging out with dj and his girl andrea pretty regularly. i had no idea she used, and to be honest, when i saw her let dj stick her, i was shocked. and it takes alot to put me in shock. she’s so tiny and preppy. junk takes all kinds, right kids?  they’d actually been giving me rides to the clinic too. me and dj got on at the same time, he’s been using since he was 13  i think, on and off. andrea kept saying she could kick on her own, no help needed. i introduced them to kristi, cuz she’s a cool chick to chill with, and she’s got hookups for deisel  and coke.  they can’t come up to my hometown hookup, so we really haven’t seen much of each other since i went awol on the clinic.  they’ve been up at kristi’s house doing the party, and i’ve been w/casey at ellie’s doing the same.

so last night we were doing coke shots, watching reruns, talking politics, when the phone rang. ellie answered and  she looked upset.

“kaia, it’s for you.”

i took the phone “hello”

“kaia, it’s kristi, where the hell have you been?”

“here, why?”

“you haven’t heard then?”

“i was gonna go up there today, but i was broke and i didn’t want you to think i was looking for a handout.” (which i was.)

“andrea overdosed.”

my throat closed up. suddenly the last time i saw her was in my mind. she had picked me up off the street, i was walking to cop, and it was like 20 degrees. i hopped in her backseat and she gave me a blanket. “to drugs?” she asked. “onward.” i replied.

“well, what the fuck, is she okay or what?”

so kristi told me the story: “you know her and dj had kicked dope, right. they were just doing coke for the past two weeks or so. they’ve been at my house the whole time, pretty much. so they did it again, last night, even though i asked them not to stay up all night tweaking. so when the coke ran out and the sun came up, they wanted to take the edge off. they copped some of those yellow bags you’ve seen going around, and she mixed up two of them.

(two bags, big fucking deal)

“so she was three quarters done, and  her eyes rolled back in her head. she fell off the couch and there she was, out cold, the fucking needle still hanging out of her arm.” kristi took a minute. ” so we called 911 and the cops and the fucking ambulance and the whole deal.  they ripped her shirt open and started compressions. she was dead, kaia, fucking dead. it wasn’t working. they hit her with narcane and she finally came back. they wisked her off to the hospital and that was it. it was so fucked up.”

“why didn’t you call me earlier?”

“i was in fucking lockup this whole time.”

“what?” this just gets more and more fuct up.

“oh yeah, after they took andrea away, they found some obscure bench warrent for a dismissed 50 dollar fine, and took me in. just to prove a point cuz of the o.d.”

“that is so fuct, i’m sorry girl. i’ll call you tomorow so we can talk.” and with that i hung up.

i was pretty geeked off the coke, and we all started talking about the infamous overdose.

“you know what, kaia.” timmy said.

“what tim.” now, tim is ellie’s roomate. we all get high together on a pretty regular basis.

“i almost went out on coke the other day.”

“what?” that’s no joke, you go out on coke, and it’s pretty certain. there is no narcane for coke shots.

so tim stuck himself with another massive coke shot and started to tell us the story. half way through both, he went completely white. he pulled the needle out of his arm, almost done. and stood up. “help me fuck fuck fuck. i need to go to the hospital fuckinghelp me ellie call 911.” he was stammering around the room, knocking shit over, staggering toward the bathroom.

casey stood up, cool as a cucumber, and went to the spot where we keep the dope. now i know, dope to cure a coke overdose is a junky wives tale, but it was all we had. casey made up a shot quick and we found tim in the bathroom, hyperventalating and trying to puke. casey tapped him on the forarm and hit a vein with persiscion. after a couple minutes, tim calmed down, his color came back, and he thanked casey.

“no more coke tonight. okay?” casey asked him.

“sure” tim said.

me and casey got our shit together and headed home. in the car, i was cooking up some dope for the two of us, we like to do our final comedown of the night alone.

“just go easy, baby, okay?” he asked me looking over. “you know, bad things come in threes.”

it’s just pathetic

the clinic (methadone) didn’t really do it for me. i went through that fabulous honeymoon phase, come on, you know it: “this is it, as long as i really put my all into it i  can do this.” which i’m sure is true. but i’m still a junky.

i was on the clinic for about two  months, maybe less. but to be honest with you, it sucked. not just  because i couldn’t get high.  the whole time i was going it was just like getting up every day to cop dope. get up, find a ride, (the car i had been using, my  mom’s hunduai, was finally repo’d.), then you wait in line to get your fix, so you can go about your day. i did finally land a job, and i am ever thankful for that. but the ‘done it made me feel icky. my joints and bones always ached, and as soon as i got home from work, around 3pm, i HAD to go to bed, i was so fucking tired. i slept straight through til dose the next morning. i asked my counselor if i was up too high, he said 80 was a normal starter dose, and if i kept coming, they’d up me again soon. “don’t worry, kaia, you’ll get used to it.” then he asked me if i ever expected to go off the clinic.

“what do you mean, ever?” i was confused.

“you know, it’s methadone maintainance, not detox, we find the longer you are on the clinic, the better your chances are.”

all of this just solidified my idea i had all along that the clinic is just a hustle the gvnt has to make money off the junk scene. they make a living off being my dealer. so it’s this white guy in a lab coat who won’t get me straight if i did coke last nite, or that dominican guy that knows i spent all  my money on his coke, so gets me straight for free. come on….  if i can’t get a ride to the clinic i’m sick just like i had a dope habit. what’s the fucking use? i can get dope a mile from my house, the clinic is 20  minutes away in a car. fuck it. 

don’t say i didn’t try though.

that’s probably the reason you haven’t heard from me,i wasn’t having any fun or getting into any trouble. just a cut little clinic junky? but dont’ worry, i’ve already amassed some interesting narratives from my escapes as of late.

i missed this.