A Cold Syringe...

Few have ever considered rehab as a gateway to sobriety. I mean, you have to sit down and tell yourself: "Hey, I'm fucked up" and get locked for, who knows how long. This isn't about rehab, exactly.

I sat sniffing the dying residue of powder dripping down my 'coked up' nostrils. I'd given up on blowing my nose in hopes of finding, some sort of clarity. All I could do is smoke - one cigarette after the other, I sat gripping the cancerous vices of nicotine and tobacco, trying to keep myself high. My attempts were futile merely because, I was already four 'joints' deep in my demand for euphoria. "You must know your limit" they'd say, preaching archaic wisdom to a choir, much like self-ejaculation.

I was never one to put too much of my life's worth in, what us young adults referred to as, cellphones. As far as I was concerned, life was always clearer without the hyperbole of 'smartphones'. Nowadays, their modern use as vibrators and portable porn devices make them the ultimate tool for bending you over, while society violated you and "pinged" you non-stop. However, after running from a psychologically desolated household for a week - to blow a grand on substance - I didn't expect my vacation from 'the world' to deliver news that my best mate found himself in rehab. 

I tried not to panic in front of my mom; who began to look like a stranger after a week away from 'home'. Usually, waking up and realising my friends are in 'junkie jail' wouldn't surprise me, but hearing about my "partner in crime" spending a stretch I wasn't aware of made me think. I thought about the lost souls who'd left rehab, yet found solace in the cold comfort of narcotics only a day later. Rehab was not the cure, so why go? A question I could only answer when I was face to face with a friend I'd called my brother. Another friend in rehab, I thought, remembering that my sister was currently spending a stretch in a facility I wasn't aware of.

F**k it. The tragedy, however, was not the fact that two of my best friends were in rehab; or that I never had a phone, but that I was being left out of all the fun drugs they gave you in rehab. Druggie? I much preferred the term, 'Narcotic Enthusiast'.

It's quite ironic, actually. Everybody and their hypocritical bullshit. In the world's eyes, druggies are separated into two: extravagant lifestyle, getting your balls sucked and partying like you're possessed by Kurt Cobain's cocaine soul. Then, there's the perception of 'instant rock bottom', the illusion that you live a desolated life and have a crack baby who works as a hooker. The ironic thing is, that was rarely the case.

I rolled up a 'joint' and blew my nose for a few seconds of relief. I was coming down hard from a daily fixation; the weed was the only thing left to keep me from scratching on the walls of my thoughts. Not a feeling of rejection, regret, nor an outburst of hurt. Merely that fucked up feeling in my chest that she left me with when she said, "goodbye". The Juliet in Shakespeare's best work in my eyes...

Author's Note

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. ANY RELATIONS TO PERSONS LIVING AND/OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL...

Reviews

[J_Star]

Interesting you describe narcotics as a "cold comfort." to me they are quite a warm one. I love how you can feel the palpable sadness in this piece, the loneliness no drug can take away. Nice work.