Status: my camp nano submission - already completed.
Fireworks
Two
Dear you,
It has been a year, when are you coming home?
I still miss you.
Love, me
I can’t sleep, I lay my head down on the damp ground ignoring the chill that runs deep within my bones. There is something about the cold grass sticking to my legs that allows me a second of peace.
I stare at the moon and watch the stars surround it; my dad once told me when we die we come back as stars, if that is true then which one is he? As a child my dad had all the answers, there was no question I could ask him that would leave him clueless, so I went through a faze – right up until he died – trying to find the one question he could never answer.
I think I have finally found that question; without him here to answer it begins to gnaw away at my conscious thoughts and my ribs. Like the drunken moon it covers all of me and I can’t help but wonder.
How am I supposed to live without him?
I choke on the silence, I have finally won. I have finally found the question he will never be able to answer; I once thought it would feel great to finally beat my father. It doesn’t, a hole forms in my heart as big as the craters in the moon and just as lonely.
I am trying really fucking hard to be tired and taken to that elusive state of sleep but his face is staring at me every time I close my eyes, begging me to stay one moment longer. Begging me not to forget, but it’s been a week and already his features are losing sharpness.
I once knew a girl who never slept; I think I finally get it. I finally understand why staying awake is sometimes easier, in my dreams he is there and everything is normal. My dad is alive and there isn’t a fucking hole in my chest, in reality his face is fading from my memory and I am struggling to recall his voice.
My blue hair may be beginning to fade, my guilt however is not.
The sky is just starting to get really dark and I am trying desperately to ignore the itch that is burning at my skin. It’s not a regular itch; it is a calling, a memory of all the times that drugs were there when no one else was.
When after a bad day at school with my mum nowhere to be found a snort of cocaine would comfort me more than any hug or sweet words ever could. I think that is pretty messed up, to be able to rely on anything but people but I suppose I am messed up. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.
There is a small stone beneath my back and I am reminded of when I was seven and would check every night under my mattress for a pea. Certain I would find it and become a princess, marry some handsome prince and never have a worry in the world again. Somewhere along the way I stopped looking for things beneath my mattress and starting hiding them there. Somewhere along the way my dreams of happily ever after disappeared for a tolerable now.
I close my eyes and allow my mind to wander; I take a deep breath as I remember the NA meeting, the one that has left me so unsettled. After session I had tried to stay alone while I waited for my mother, but a boy had struck up a conversation with me.
“I liked your NA bullshit,” I had stiffened as he called my rebellion bullshit. But what did he know to him I was another drug addicted girl, which these days really aren’t that rare. “I think Maggie nearly had an aneurysm,” I had rummaged through my handbag and pretended to be mute; this didn’t discourage Kyle whose story had involved less words than mine but somehow told more.
When he had spoken he had this rue smile as if telling every one of us something so precious, “I’m Kyle and I’m gay and addicted to party drugs,” He hadn’t specified which party drugs but I would assume all the ones with the pretty colours that are so magical under darkness.
Kyle in all honesty was the last person I would pick to be gay, a skin head maybe but definitely not gay. He had his hair shaved to the scalp and wore a flannel shirt and jeans with big heavy boots that demanded attention when he walked. He ran his hand over his shaven head and I could feel how desperately broken he must be.
“It wasn’t bullshit, coffee is a drug,” I had said not sure what else to offer, Kyle had chuckled and something strange happened. A tiny butterfly had broken free in my stomach letting me know that I can get through this. I had drowned the butterfly with water but the feeling of its wings had remained in my stomach all night, even now as I try to fall asleep.
My tar filled lungs wince as I breathe in and out demanding memories to be forgotten and urges to be swallowed, but it’s not that easy.
I really wish it was…
The water is warm against my cold skin but it does little to lessen the chill in my bones. The chill is not from lack of warmth but lack of medication, lack of those sweet pills that make me feel so wonderful. I want to sit on the tiled floor of the shower but I cannot make my legs move, they are glued to the spot.
I think mornings are the worst, when you wake up and the day is fresh, filled with hope and potential. It is not the fall that breaks me every day but rather the hope that the fall won’t be as bad. That maybe today the itching feeling in my skin will be gone and I won’t need a cigarette. That maybe just maybe I am not addicted and today is the day everyone realises it.
I wash the shampoo from my hair and turn off the water, it is five o’clock and no one else is awake yet. My mother and her boyfriend will wake up in an hour and he will sneak out and she will pretend like everything is fine. I dress in jeans and t-shirt throwing my sweater over as the morning chill cuts through my bones.
I slip on my boots and grab my carton of cigarettes; I slip as soundlessly as possible out the front door and count to five just to make sure no one has heard me. I hear no sounds of anyone trying to stop me so I jog to the start of a nature trail around the corner of my house and follow it till I find a large rock to perch on and smoke my cigarette.
The path is completely quiet except for the singing of the birds and the croaking of the frogs in the pond just to my left. I stare up at the brightening morning sky, seeing the last stars falling away is quiet beautiful. In the silence I hear the distinct and familiar sound of my heart breaking, as I suck in the fresh air I can’t but think of my father.
Despite the years’ time it feels as if he died just yesterday, my heart hurts thinking of how much has changed since he left me and my mother. I will never admit it but the start of all my problems was right after he died. It utterly broke my heart and I know no matter how many boys I kiss and let love me it will never fix the hole he has left.
My fingers tremble as I pull a cigarette from my pack and fumble with my generic white lighter to light to end; my real lighter had been confiscated by my mum and no doubt thrown out. It was nothing wonderful - my lighter, it was silver from the pawn shop with some girls name engraved on it, Eve. Wesley had bought it for me and I had carried it with me everywhere.
I think maybe my beginning is when I met Wesley, the beginning of my… whatever. Wesley was the most beautiful boy I had ever laid eyes one, a year older than me and covered in hate he was the most fantastic person I had ever imagined. He smoked five cigarettes a day and a cigarette was my first drug.
The memory of Wesley and his stained finger tips is fresh in my mind tainted with love and just a little bit of hate.
The sun is finally up and I am warm in my sweater, I do not want to take it off or put out this cigarette. I have a problem with endings, maybe that is why I am so scared to start anything, I hate the ending. The ending of a movie, of a cigarette, a cup of coffee or the eventual down after drugs, I am a middle person.
In the middle no one leaves and that is the most wonderful thing in the world, if there was no end my dad would still be here and I wouldn’t be slowing rotting away.
*
There is something almost therapeutic about that first intake of drugs, when it first hits your system and sends everything a little haywire. A poppy song plays in the background of the room I am laying in but I barely take notice, when I am high everything besides how I feel is completely secondary.
I focus on how wonderfully ordinary I feel, I hadn’t meant to come here and get high, I really hadn’t but like so much else it just simply happened. I haven’t slept more than three hours last night so I need just a little something to get me through. It is nothing particularly strong, a small joint shared with Wesley.
Wesley lies back on his bed next to me, Wesley lives in a crumbling unit with three other guys, all they do is get high and sell drugs. Sometimes I think that is simply beautiful, to live with no purpose.
Other times, when I am lying in bed trying to fall asleep I am disgusted with not only myself but everyone around me. I glance at Wesley, he has his eyes closed and a cigarette is burning brightly in his fingertips, they are stained yellow from the nicotine and scratched up from all the needles he inserts into his body.
Wesley met me at the wrong time in my life, or maybe the right time. It was just after my dad had gotten really sick and I was desperate for some sort of mistake. I had thrown myself into the arms of the angry boy who told me he understood.
It wasn’t until he found me after my dad’s funeral and offered me something that could help me did I start to love him. Wesley like me comes from tragic circumstances that any psychologist would suggest were the fuel to his drug problem.
We know better, we know that some people are simply fucked up and no matter what; they are destined for a life of needles and pain. I am one of those people which is why I reach for Wesley’s face and kiss him everywhere in that way I know he loves. It is familiar and revolting all at the same time, having someone familiar is all I want.
I let Wesley touch me in places that I have come to hate, I am on autopilot because deep within I know this is not right. I know this is not how this should be; I should be enjoying myself not desperate to feel anything.
Wesley’s room is painted a pale blue and there is a stack of heroin on his night table, how easy it would be to simply reach over and undo everything. To become that girl again, the one that was utterly and comfortably numb.
Wesley whispers he loves me in my ear and as much as I want to say it back I simply can’t, there are many things I can lie to myself about, love is not one of them.
It has been a year, when are you coming home?
I still miss you.
Love, me
I can’t sleep, I lay my head down on the damp ground ignoring the chill that runs deep within my bones. There is something about the cold grass sticking to my legs that allows me a second of peace.
I stare at the moon and watch the stars surround it; my dad once told me when we die we come back as stars, if that is true then which one is he? As a child my dad had all the answers, there was no question I could ask him that would leave him clueless, so I went through a faze – right up until he died – trying to find the one question he could never answer.
I think I have finally found that question; without him here to answer it begins to gnaw away at my conscious thoughts and my ribs. Like the drunken moon it covers all of me and I can’t help but wonder.
How am I supposed to live without him?
I choke on the silence, I have finally won. I have finally found the question he will never be able to answer; I once thought it would feel great to finally beat my father. It doesn’t, a hole forms in my heart as big as the craters in the moon and just as lonely.
I am trying really fucking hard to be tired and taken to that elusive state of sleep but his face is staring at me every time I close my eyes, begging me to stay one moment longer. Begging me not to forget, but it’s been a week and already his features are losing sharpness.
I once knew a girl who never slept; I think I finally get it. I finally understand why staying awake is sometimes easier, in my dreams he is there and everything is normal. My dad is alive and there isn’t a fucking hole in my chest, in reality his face is fading from my memory and I am struggling to recall his voice.
My blue hair may be beginning to fade, my guilt however is not.
The sky is just starting to get really dark and I am trying desperately to ignore the itch that is burning at my skin. It’s not a regular itch; it is a calling, a memory of all the times that drugs were there when no one else was.
When after a bad day at school with my mum nowhere to be found a snort of cocaine would comfort me more than any hug or sweet words ever could. I think that is pretty messed up, to be able to rely on anything but people but I suppose I am messed up. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.
There is a small stone beneath my back and I am reminded of when I was seven and would check every night under my mattress for a pea. Certain I would find it and become a princess, marry some handsome prince and never have a worry in the world again. Somewhere along the way I stopped looking for things beneath my mattress and starting hiding them there. Somewhere along the way my dreams of happily ever after disappeared for a tolerable now.
I close my eyes and allow my mind to wander; I take a deep breath as I remember the NA meeting, the one that has left me so unsettled. After session I had tried to stay alone while I waited for my mother, but a boy had struck up a conversation with me.
“I liked your NA bullshit,” I had stiffened as he called my rebellion bullshit. But what did he know to him I was another drug addicted girl, which these days really aren’t that rare. “I think Maggie nearly had an aneurysm,” I had rummaged through my handbag and pretended to be mute; this didn’t discourage Kyle whose story had involved less words than mine but somehow told more.
When he had spoken he had this rue smile as if telling every one of us something so precious, “I’m Kyle and I’m gay and addicted to party drugs,” He hadn’t specified which party drugs but I would assume all the ones with the pretty colours that are so magical under darkness.
Kyle in all honesty was the last person I would pick to be gay, a skin head maybe but definitely not gay. He had his hair shaved to the scalp and wore a flannel shirt and jeans with big heavy boots that demanded attention when he walked. He ran his hand over his shaven head and I could feel how desperately broken he must be.
“It wasn’t bullshit, coffee is a drug,” I had said not sure what else to offer, Kyle had chuckled and something strange happened. A tiny butterfly had broken free in my stomach letting me know that I can get through this. I had drowned the butterfly with water but the feeling of its wings had remained in my stomach all night, even now as I try to fall asleep.
My tar filled lungs wince as I breathe in and out demanding memories to be forgotten and urges to be swallowed, but it’s not that easy.
I really wish it was…
The water is warm against my cold skin but it does little to lessen the chill in my bones. The chill is not from lack of warmth but lack of medication, lack of those sweet pills that make me feel so wonderful. I want to sit on the tiled floor of the shower but I cannot make my legs move, they are glued to the spot.
I think mornings are the worst, when you wake up and the day is fresh, filled with hope and potential. It is not the fall that breaks me every day but rather the hope that the fall won’t be as bad. That maybe today the itching feeling in my skin will be gone and I won’t need a cigarette. That maybe just maybe I am not addicted and today is the day everyone realises it.
I wash the shampoo from my hair and turn off the water, it is five o’clock and no one else is awake yet. My mother and her boyfriend will wake up in an hour and he will sneak out and she will pretend like everything is fine. I dress in jeans and t-shirt throwing my sweater over as the morning chill cuts through my bones.
I slip on my boots and grab my carton of cigarettes; I slip as soundlessly as possible out the front door and count to five just to make sure no one has heard me. I hear no sounds of anyone trying to stop me so I jog to the start of a nature trail around the corner of my house and follow it till I find a large rock to perch on and smoke my cigarette.
The path is completely quiet except for the singing of the birds and the croaking of the frogs in the pond just to my left. I stare up at the brightening morning sky, seeing the last stars falling away is quiet beautiful. In the silence I hear the distinct and familiar sound of my heart breaking, as I suck in the fresh air I can’t but think of my father.
Despite the years’ time it feels as if he died just yesterday, my heart hurts thinking of how much has changed since he left me and my mother. I will never admit it but the start of all my problems was right after he died. It utterly broke my heart and I know no matter how many boys I kiss and let love me it will never fix the hole he has left.
My fingers tremble as I pull a cigarette from my pack and fumble with my generic white lighter to light to end; my real lighter had been confiscated by my mum and no doubt thrown out. It was nothing wonderful - my lighter, it was silver from the pawn shop with some girls name engraved on it, Eve. Wesley had bought it for me and I had carried it with me everywhere.
I think maybe my beginning is when I met Wesley, the beginning of my… whatever. Wesley was the most beautiful boy I had ever laid eyes one, a year older than me and covered in hate he was the most fantastic person I had ever imagined. He smoked five cigarettes a day and a cigarette was my first drug.
The memory of Wesley and his stained finger tips is fresh in my mind tainted with love and just a little bit of hate.
The sun is finally up and I am warm in my sweater, I do not want to take it off or put out this cigarette. I have a problem with endings, maybe that is why I am so scared to start anything, I hate the ending. The ending of a movie, of a cigarette, a cup of coffee or the eventual down after drugs, I am a middle person.
In the middle no one leaves and that is the most wonderful thing in the world, if there was no end my dad would still be here and I wouldn’t be slowing rotting away.
*
There is something almost therapeutic about that first intake of drugs, when it first hits your system and sends everything a little haywire. A poppy song plays in the background of the room I am laying in but I barely take notice, when I am high everything besides how I feel is completely secondary.
I focus on how wonderfully ordinary I feel, I hadn’t meant to come here and get high, I really hadn’t but like so much else it just simply happened. I haven’t slept more than three hours last night so I need just a little something to get me through. It is nothing particularly strong, a small joint shared with Wesley.
Wesley lies back on his bed next to me, Wesley lives in a crumbling unit with three other guys, all they do is get high and sell drugs. Sometimes I think that is simply beautiful, to live with no purpose.
Other times, when I am lying in bed trying to fall asleep I am disgusted with not only myself but everyone around me. I glance at Wesley, he has his eyes closed and a cigarette is burning brightly in his fingertips, they are stained yellow from the nicotine and scratched up from all the needles he inserts into his body.
Wesley met me at the wrong time in my life, or maybe the right time. It was just after my dad had gotten really sick and I was desperate for some sort of mistake. I had thrown myself into the arms of the angry boy who told me he understood.
It wasn’t until he found me after my dad’s funeral and offered me something that could help me did I start to love him. Wesley like me comes from tragic circumstances that any psychologist would suggest were the fuel to his drug problem.
We know better, we know that some people are simply fucked up and no matter what; they are destined for a life of needles and pain. I am one of those people which is why I reach for Wesley’s face and kiss him everywhere in that way I know he loves. It is familiar and revolting all at the same time, having someone familiar is all I want.
I let Wesley touch me in places that I have come to hate, I am on autopilot because deep within I know this is not right. I know this is not how this should be; I should be enjoying myself not desperate to feel anything.
Wesley’s room is painted a pale blue and there is a stack of heroin on his night table, how easy it would be to simply reach over and undo everything. To become that girl again, the one that was utterly and comfortably numb.
Wesley whispers he loves me in my ear and as much as I want to say it back I simply can’t, there are many things I can lie to myself about, love is not one of them.