If you know, then you’ll know. And if you really know,
then none of this will come as a shock or a surprise to you.
But if you don’t know or if you won’t know
then maybe you can’t know.
Maybe this is impossible for you to grab the concept
of a life like this
But maybe I can help.
Allow yourself to go there, and follow along.
Try . . .
use this as an exercise and allow your mind
to slide into a vision with me.
So, for now, I will open this up to you
like a window or some kind of porthole, haunting and dark
and while true and real, allow me to pull you in,
and to give a view of a different life,
which was my life (once) and yes,
this was me in a different lifetime, or as I recall
there was a narrator famously said,
“a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,”
only in my case, this was not a great adventure that took place
and the galaxy itself was not so far away.
I was somewhere in the section of East New York Brooklyn.
The hour was late and my pockets were empty.
So was my stomach, for that matter, which was growling
because my source of food was different from a usual person.
But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t hungry.
Or to put this out there,
I was on a hunt for something which is bountiful and plentiful
yet, to a man with empty pockets
and to a man on the grind, or when it comes to the frayed edges
of narcotic bliss, that dies in infinite half-lives,
I was on the end of a binge with nerves as tight
as a tripwire and equally explosive.
I could feel my heartbeat as it pounded in my chest.
I was in a new form of despair and only one thing
could help me.
And the word to define this is simple.
The word is more.
More, yes,
but there is never enough.
I was a hunter in search for prey
which could be found in any corner of a concrete jungle
but at the same time, the tax and trade side of this business
requires money, and I had none left
which means I had to either barter or steal..
And by the way
you can always tell when someone is on the dangle
especially if you’re one of the same.
You can tell who is part of the game
and who is the under or who is the prey.
You can see it in them and you know that, like you,
they are in search for the same thing.
The look in their eyes is what gives this away.
I was walking down the slick wet streets,
which sort of glistened from the blacktop
beneath the streetlamps
that shone from a previous rain,
which finally stopped and allowed for a moment of reprieve.
I saw him standing across the street, a familiar stranger,
on the opposite corner.
I never saw this man before,
but somehow,
we both knew.
We were both looking to catch a fix
and if at all possible,
we were looking to somehow end the needy feeling inside,
or to ease the nerves and soften the voices;
somehow, we knew that we both were in a bad way
and both of us needed to score.
Ah, the drug game.
It never changes.
I can tell you that the infinite high
begins to shrink in infinite windows,
closing smaller with each purchase,
and with each attempt to reach that grand plateau,
you find yourself getting high, just to keep from feeling low
and hence, there is no redemption,
and there are secrets to salvation,
at least not here.
No, there’s just the need for more,
but even if we had “more” the equation
is always unsolvable.
The man across the street was like a new friend,
or if nothing else, he was only the enemy of my enemy
we made him my friend
or ally.
He was tall and thin and dark skinned.
His eyes were opened wide, as if to be electrified into a permanent shock
or caught in a wild hysteria, twitching and paranoid,
but still—one man searching for food is only one man,
but make this two men looking for a meal and now,
there’s twice the chance that perhaps both can eat.
Next,
I found myself walking up the steps of a beaten stoop
and entering an old brownstone.
Abandoned and dilapidated,
or uninhabitable and condemned.
There was a hole in the main floor, which fell down to the basement,
which looked blacker and more endless to me,
or at least this is how it seemed from my perspective.
I am sure that many who fell down that hole
never recovered or ever returned.
I didn’t want that to be me.
I noticed an old bagwoman
who was no different from anyone else in the broken-down building.
She was crouching over a small wastepaper basket,
and reliving herself in the bucket
as if it were a toilet.
Her eyes were haunting.
She looked at me with disgust and hatred and too,
her eyes were like mine and anyone else’s in this place—evil and high,
and possessed by a white powder,
which was the demon of all demons,
and the all hail to the cocaine gods,
or hail to the tiny bottles of crack and glass pipes,
and all the souls who rotted and lost to this,
blessed be them who lost too deeply, and me,
I was another one on the dangle.
I was another of those who lost their way and their soul,
and yes, I was on the way up into this broken-down building,
creaking up a broken staircase and following
an unknown stranger to fix myself,
at least for a little while.
The man pointed to the side of the staircase
which was a wordless indication to stay closer to the wall,
as if to explain that I should step on this side of the stairs;
otherwise, I could fall through.
I followed. We found ourselves up in a small room,
|to which he closed the door and put a shiv in the door,
so no one else could open it from the outside.
We were about to blast off.
He was about to help me reconnect with a euphoria
which, of course, is the only thing that could save me from myself,
or for the while, this is the demon that could allow me to feel
a synthetic moment of redemption—just to keep the cocaine bugs
from weaving through my skin.
I needed something to solve the electrified feeling in my body.
I needed some kind of relief.
My jaw was grinding. My nerves were on high alert,
and finally, something was about to fix my soul,
at least for the time being.
It is true when I heard someone say that one is too many
and a thousand is never enough.
It is true that demons like this are more insatiable
than anything else.
There is a world of mirages and a hysterical voices
and even audible hallucinations,
which means you hear them
but you don’t see what’s coming.
This is the downside of the high
which is always depleting and resounding in fits of constant despair,
and with nothing else
but diminishing returns, yes,
the demons keep you this way,
just to give you a taste,
just to keep you coming back, and yes,
this is also why the first hit is always free.
Believe me, they know how to weave;
and if this were not true, would we even have an epidemic
like the one we have now?
But wait, I digress.
We were about to set up. I saw the man, who I suppose
was my new spirit guide, at least in a evil sense
and he was about to place the pipe in his mouth when out of nowhere,
we heard a series of gunshots blasting in the floor below.
We heard running and footsteps, and before we knew it,
we heard the sound of ricocheting bullets . .
we tried to look out the door
but there were people shooting guns at point blank range,
killing crack heads and junkies,
as if to angrily euthanize them,
or, perhaps this was some other problem
that I knew nothing about and put simply,
I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There was no way down.
We tried to run but the only way was up.
So, we took to the fire escape and climbed up to the top of the building.
I looked down to the street . . . I noticed a man walking up to someone
who was crawling across the street with a bullet wound
in the bottom of his back.
The gunman walked up and without mercy, feverishly and angrily,
I noticed two shots of lightening blast, fired from the tip of his pistol
and bang, bang, two bullets were shot
into the back of the man’s head.
Lifeless . . .
I looked to see where my new friend was.
But he was lifelessly crouched down by the wall around the roof
staring straight ahead.
I didn’t notice that he was hit.
I didn’t notice that he was bleeding.
But now it was clear.
His eyes were bulged from his head,
and his mouth seemed to form his last words before passing.
All he said was “momma,” and then he went away . . .
I reached for his package that was in his hand
and there was blood on it. There was blood everywhere,
but still, I needed to fix myself and get my mind right,
if I were to survive this.
If not, then at least I could die high.
Understand?
I noticed there was picture of a young black girl— it was his daughter
and written on the back of the photo were the words,
“my little girl.”
He wasn’t a junkie . . .
he was just a man who lost to a demon,
just like me.
I heard the sirens. I heard the rage of gunfire.
And when I saw the swirling lights,
I knew there was no way out for me.
I had to jump from one rooftop to the next,
but the leap was far.
The jump was big but if I didn’t make it,
then I would never make it and in the end,
I would be in the back of some squad car or equally,
I’d be dead like my new friend.
I took my blast from his bloody glass pipe
to energize my speed and then high again,
I ran and I jumped from one rooftop to the next,
but I was short.
I felt myself lose height in slow motion
and gravity pulled me down, and almost instantly,
I woke in my bed, sweating like a madman,
grateful as ever that this wasn’t real,
and that this was only another drug dream—or to me,
back then, this was the demons saying
“beware, I haunt you still.”
It’s been 33 years since I saw things like this.
These dreams come sometimes,
but they don’t come as haunting
as they used to be.
Besides, my beast learns tricks.
He is more dignified now because otherwise,
he would lose his tricks and I would spot him
from miles away.
My beast learns how to change his accent otherwise,
my beast is just another recognizable devil,
alive and well and living here among us, and doing his best
to let the record reflect,
beware, I haunt you still.
So, to you, the musician . . .
Ante up, kid.
Play us a song and give us a background,
create the stage, my friend
and let’s play . . .
to put the devil behind us.
The Written Addiction 