Status: A VERY slow work in progress
Stay
Bleed
I was always good at pretending to sleep. I was exceptionally gifted at sleeping in general, when I wasn't stoned, that is. On the rare occasions that I sank into the deepest comfort of sleep, I found myself thinking that this was better than out there, above the surface. The years passed like sand, and soon I couldn't help but think that this was my subconscious method of suicide.
Was death the answer? I didn't know.
But the Yellow Jesus in my arms made me feel like God. During those years, I was walking through walls. Not so much as a magician could, but like a ghost. I was indestructible in this eternal fog.
I remember this, baby. One day, we had broke into a basement of a parking building to score. It was November, chilly but bright.
The dust motes had settled into my hair as well as my clothes, and it made me feel like an old piece of furniture in this cramped space of discarded folding chairs and old tires. There was a broken window with loose, rotten wood nailed across it. The light came down in ribbons, a strange prelude to the fall of December. In front of it sat a long plank of wood across a broken shelf. On this make shift bench, I was mesmerized.
The light in my eyes, the thin layer of warmth in the core of my bones, you, sitting against the dry wall thrashed around me in such a swift and perfect it was almost like I wasn't high, and this was real. But it wasn't. And I didn't even care.
I sat up from my throne and spread my arms wide, and imagined myself at the top of a mountain. The cold air, the total silence, like being in God's forest. The orange horizon a mirage in this distant Garden of Ice. With my arms strung up beside me like a puppet, I felt nailed to a cross, a Savior, bleeding out the devil. Bleeding out this heroin. I could feel the veins in my neck swell as I pretended to scream. This was a validation of my sorrow. I needed a reason. Had I stopped using, there would be no reason for anything anymore.
And the picture changed. I was now on a stage in an empty auditorium, but there was noise: a thunderous applause. I couldn't help myself! Bowing, I kissed my hand and threw it into the invisible crowd. The sound was deafening! I thought I was going mad. Oh, it was magnificent. The electricity that surged through me . . . I wish you could have been there with me.
"What the fuck are you doing?" You asked out of the corner of my daydream. "You're an ass."
And with that, my stage performing days were done.
I sometimes wonder whether or not you would understand if you accidentally drifted into my world. It's as if the air is as thick as honey, and my body is wading through it, my hands outstretched toward you. But you keep falling away from me. My hands are tied up by . . . this dark mass. This bleeding heroin.
You know, darlin', you're like sand. The harder I try to hold on to you, the faster you slip through my fingers.
Was death the answer? I didn't know.
But the Yellow Jesus in my arms made me feel like God. During those years, I was walking through walls. Not so much as a magician could, but like a ghost. I was indestructible in this eternal fog.
I remember this, baby. One day, we had broke into a basement of a parking building to score. It was November, chilly but bright.
The dust motes had settled into my hair as well as my clothes, and it made me feel like an old piece of furniture in this cramped space of discarded folding chairs and old tires. There was a broken window with loose, rotten wood nailed across it. The light came down in ribbons, a strange prelude to the fall of December. In front of it sat a long plank of wood across a broken shelf. On this make shift bench, I was mesmerized.
The light in my eyes, the thin layer of warmth in the core of my bones, you, sitting against the dry wall thrashed around me in such a swift and perfect it was almost like I wasn't high, and this was real. But it wasn't. And I didn't even care.
I sat up from my throne and spread my arms wide, and imagined myself at the top of a mountain. The cold air, the total silence, like being in God's forest. The orange horizon a mirage in this distant Garden of Ice. With my arms strung up beside me like a puppet, I felt nailed to a cross, a Savior, bleeding out the devil. Bleeding out this heroin. I could feel the veins in my neck swell as I pretended to scream. This was a validation of my sorrow. I needed a reason. Had I stopped using, there would be no reason for anything anymore.
And the picture changed. I was now on a stage in an empty auditorium, but there was noise: a thunderous applause. I couldn't help myself! Bowing, I kissed my hand and threw it into the invisible crowd. The sound was deafening! I thought I was going mad. Oh, it was magnificent. The electricity that surged through me . . . I wish you could have been there with me.
"What the fuck are you doing?" You asked out of the corner of my daydream. "You're an ass."
And with that, my stage performing days were done.
I sometimes wonder whether or not you would understand if you accidentally drifted into my world. It's as if the air is as thick as honey, and my body is wading through it, my hands outstretched toward you. But you keep falling away from me. My hands are tied up by . . . this dark mass. This bleeding heroin.
You know, darlin', you're like sand. The harder I try to hold on to you, the faster you slip through my fingers.