I am not who I was
then again,
none of us are
who we were,
I mean.
It’s hard to think about it . . .
. . . what’s it been now,
33 years?
That’s a long time
and although this is not me
anymore, nor has this been me
for a very long time,
I still remember the violence
from the moonlight and the urgency
from the tiny torch,
that basted the heart
and gave me away.
I remember,
it was a night that was not unlike last night,
rainy, and somewhat urgent,
moving in traffic behind the stop and go
and rushing to go nowhere
behind the redlight, taillights,
and man, it was just like I never left.
I could feel it . . .
inside me was a flood of something
that I had chosen to abstain from,
but, of course,
the poison always welcomes you back,
no judgement
and no questions asked.
People ask how this happens.
How do we go from one end to the other?
How do we slide back to some old,
or default settings of hysteria
or how do we fall back into the madness
of an old symptom
that nearly killed us?
The gun beneath my seat was silvery and mad,
angry with hatred and vengeance, and hostile too,
just like the blood in my veins
which was bursting and beaming, red as ever,
and tainted by a spell
which comes from a chemical reaction,
known as narcotic bliss,
or the absence of euphoria.
There is no sense to this madness
yet there is something understandable,
like a butcher to their slaughter
or a fisherman to his catch;
there are no feelings about this.
It’s just business.
There was no emotion.
There was only the speed of white light
and the blinding rush of something numb, or weightless,
or otherwise, there was only the craze of a depleting high
that operates solely upon the rites
of diminishing returns.
Each blast gives you a smaller window
to leap through, which means the highs are shorter
and the degradation of shame
or the crash that follows goes deeper and deeper
and the hell this leaves you in lasts longer,
and longer.
Yet, the spookiness or the tragic nature
of dying alive at the speed of light
is not a deterrent
at all.
No, it’s quite the opposite,
which is something the devil knows
all too well.
Safe to say, it was as though I never left.
Nothing changed. Not the players.
Not the game nor the poison.
No, I was lost again.
I thought that I had left a trail of breadcrumbs
which was supposed to be
how I’d find my way home from the concrete jungles,
but the vines here are only street lamps,
and their pendants glow with rainbow halos,
haunting as ever in the mid-city street,
late at night, and like a silvery tear,
the street lamps have a glow
around them during the early spring
with a nighttime rain.
The insanity is crazy or deadly
or better known as more of the same
and dependable, or understandable, of course,
and like a dancer with an old partner,
the demons came back for me like an old, unwanted friend
who showed up out of nowhere,
and smiled at me when he said,
Hey, do I have a surprise for you . . .
It’s hard to believe that was about 33 years ago, today,
yet this is not the day,
which I count as my rebirth, so-to-speak.
No.
I call that April 1st.
That’s when I fessed up to what happened.
I was in a car that was filled
with different volumes of death
yet somehow, I didn’t die.
I could have.
Several times.
But no,
I’m still here.
Nothing out there is the same
and, at the same time,
nothing has changed. Not the players.
Not the game.
Sure, some of the poisons are different now
and sure, the news has more coverage of
the overdoses or the deaths,
but of course; there’s big business here.
Drug addiction is nothing new,
regardless of what the stats tell you.
Heroin isn’t new either.
It’s reshaped a little
and tainted more.
But none of this is new.
As for treatment:
Heads in beds.
Detox
Rehabs
Insurance and co-pays, bigtime deductibles
and like the devil,
there’ll always be someone to welcome you back,
sick or not, sober or otherwise,
and look to make a paycheck.
There’s always a plan out there,
which is not to say that every plan is evil—but
there are evils in this world and as long as this exists,
or as long as there’s a penny to be made,
there will always be someone out there
who is looking to make a dollar and a cent,
and they’ll smile too—as if to say,
walk this way, we have a special place for you,
right here and right now.
Take a seat.
Get comfortable
Kick your feet up.
We have lunch at noon and a movie tonight.
It wasn’t much after this night
that I found myself back at a place
that was all too familiar to me.
Rehab . . .
Benny, you’re back, I see.
Who’d a thought that once you get out free,
or that once you’ve been cleansed.
one would sign up again,
and go back to their own prison.
I suppose what they say about evil is true.
Hence, I do not forget where I came from.
I remember where I was.
I remember what I went through.
And more than anything,
I remember the pistol beneath my seat
and the red taillights in front of me,
the urgency of the rain,
and the sound of windshield wipers
going back and forth.
The high . . .
It never lasts very long.
It’s like one hit, then two, then three,
and then all you’re doing
is trying to keep yourself away from the crash,
which only goes lower and lower.
I remember the angels dying
from the flashes of white light, heating against a glass pipe,
and as the heat picked up
the mouth sucked in
dissolving tiny white boulders to pillars of smoke
that pull down to the lungs—and then
the mind explodes into a vast array of numbness
and the moment ceases to exist.
Nothing else matters. Not the fuck ups.
Not the rage. Not the shame that everything gained
was incinerated and vanished under a flame
and every once of value was forfeited or taken by the demons.
I have to say it again.
What they say is true . . .
Evil.
It truly has no boundaries.
Last night in the fields
hard to believe it’s been 33 years.
But I’m still here . . .
The Written Addiction 