Tainted Angel

A breakup leads to the relapse of a former drug addict. And we all know addiction is a hard thing to beat...

 

Try to understand there’s an old mistake that fools will make

And I’m the king of them, pushing everything that’s good away

 

-Dashboard Confessional, “Bend and not Break”

 

 

***

 

            He promised he’d stop. ‘He’ had made him stop. Picked him up from the bottom. Made him feel like he was worth something.

            Addictions are a hard thing to break. Whatever it is, you need it to hold on; to make you believe you’re not slipping. But in the middle of every belief is a lie; because the thing is, the needing means you are slipping. Slipping into a pit from which there is no escape.

            Whatever your drug: heroin, love, it’s all the same. There’s a brief high, and then you crash. And in the crash, the remembrance of the high. The longing the need for that sweet release of the high. No commitments, no obligations; not to yourself, not to anyone. Just purity. You’re free, riding the wings of the high. But the crash, ahh the crash… You’re never expecting it. One minute, everything’s fine, it’s the time of your life; but one word, one look, one touch, one thought, and it can all be over.

            He slips the needle into his arm like he has so many times before, the ritual returning like he had never been saved. Like ‘he’ had never come along and given him a purpose and the stronger high of love for another.

            Of course, not all highs are wonderful, full of “sweet release”. Some bring back dreadful things. Horrible things. Those things make you want to crawl under a rock and cry until there’s nothing left of you. Until you feel you’ve dissolved into a deep sleep…

 

 

“You swore you had stopped!” He had screamed. “I honestly believed you, I trusted you!” Tears once held back were now flowing freely. I had never seen him cry before. It was so strange to watch the tears well in his eyes, and roll down his cheeks, only to be brushed away by an angry hand.

            “And I did!” I screamed back at him.

            “Then why did I find this,” he yells, holding a bag of heroin, “Under the bed? And in the closet?” a bag of cocaine, “And,” he chokes out, “these in your dresser?” This last of course, is a needle, a candle, and a blackened spoon.

            I just stare at him in shock. “Why,” I whisper, “were you in my stuff?”

            “Because I know you were,” he pauses, “are an addict. And you blame me for checking to make sure you stay clean?”

            This last part of the argument had been fairly quiet, but it couldn’t last. I explode at him, and he explodes back.

            “And how the hell would you know anything about it?! Huh?! How the f**k could you know how hard it’s been for me?!”
            “Because I was a f*****g addict too!”

            At this, I’m stunned into silence. I had had no idea. Not even the tiniest hint that he had once been in my position. He was so perfect, it was impossible to imagine him shooting up in a dark alley. To think of him tainted like me.

            “Get out.” He whispers. “Get out, and take this crap with you.”   

I look up, to see him staring at the floor, dark tear stains on his feet, arms out straight: holding my drugs.

 

 The man in the alley has ended up curled in a ball, whimpering a name, only he knows what it is.

He shoots up again is his despair; and this time, he doesn’t come down from the high. Even though we know tainted angels can only fall.

 

Author's Note

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?
All are welcomed ^^

~B

Reviews

[Inda Lauryn]

The imagery in the beginning is stark and disturbing. (I think that's a good thing, by the way.) I just wish the piece were longer or just extended in some way. It's a compelling story and it's over too soon.