In the Month of May

An addiction to cure an addiction is only worse than the original.

Replacing drugs and alcohol with AA and God is only worse. You are curing nothing, only replacing one addiction with another. You're replacing drugs with God. You're replacing something that you can touch and feel and see with something that is so questionable, something that may not even exist.

At least drugs exist.

I think of this as I lay in the gravel. It itches against my back, my scalp. I can feel the dirt and grime of city streets inch over my flesh, creeping its way through my nose and mouth down into my lungs. I can feel it spreading through my blood. I can feel my insides turn black.
I stay still.

I've been to everywhere I can think of to talk of these nights spent lying in dirt roads, gravel roads, cement paved roads. I go anywhere where roads exist, and living where I live, they are not hard to find. They are nearly everywhere, in fact.

I started with small roads, in my neighbourhood, only a few steps from my front door. I started at night. I lied there, taking in the silent humidity of the air drifting above me. There were no stars to gaze at, only streetlights and headlights of cars.
It got worse, to where those weren't enough. I became addicted to the adrenaline of a car coming so close that I could feel its hot, musty breath against my neck. I was honked at and screamed at plenty of times, those people's noise cutting through the night like ravaging blades.

I think of those memories as I lay in the gravel, cold and still. The air materializes above my lips with each breath. I think back to when I wouldn't be alone.

We shared this habit, this addiction. We never called it either of those, those were other people's names for it, we called it love.
But now that you're gone, what do I call it now?

I call it missing you.
I call it desperation.

I lie in the gravel, alone and cold, reminiscing, remembering.
I lie and wait for the headlights, for the musty disgusting breath to breathe down my neck.

I lie and wait at three in the morning, in the middle of the interstate, feeding my need, my so-called "addiction."
I lie and wait and think.

"What part of it do you think you're addicted to?"
"It's not an addiction, I'm not addicted to anything about it at all, I just like the feeling of it."
He stares at me, skeptical.
"Then why do you do it?"
"For the love I lost, for the adrenaline, for the cold nights and holding hands."
I pause, look at him.
"I do it to remember him and everything he said."

I lie and wait at three in the morning for headlights to blind my sore eyes.
I lie and wait in the median of the interstate, waiting for headlights to run me into the pavement, or for instincts to get the better of me and roll me out of the way.

I lie and wait to be next to him, begging my better common sense to not interfere.
I beg it to let me be still as the headlights grow nearer and nearer.
It stays quiet and I close my eyes and end my addiction.
I close my eyes and wind up next to him.