Recovery

It's happening toe by toe. It started with my big toe on my left foot. The thumb toe. It wasn't a pain, it was just something I noticed- and maybe I'm trying to get a point across that's more than a description of minor nerve pain. I just think: I guess you'd start to miss that constellation-dappled expanse of indigo from under the frozen shelves of Antarctic isolation- under water, but not particularly drowning. I'm talking about the brief window of sobriety in your lifetime of chemical addiction. 

I always talk about the gold and glory of black veins and psychedelic rods and cones, but maybe now it's boring too- like any romance you can have in the Trump Era. By not particularly drowning, you are breathing through damaged gills, the same way you can breathe with meth mouth. What they're all telling me - everyone and no one - is that boredom needs a different home, the only underwater eviction scenario that involves a choice. 

I hate change, but I have to try all the flavors. My elitist perfectionism (the best wife I have ever had) increases like a skyscraper elevator. It rises slowly, but the higher you go, the chance of fatality grows. Fatality or immortality? Depends on how much of a communist you are. It's a strange emotional phenomenon to want to get better. It's blasphemy on your DNA. When your forest fires reach the thousands-of-acres-checkpoint, you should be able to put them out with a single gallon bucket of water. What's that? You think that's impossible? Do it, or else you're a junkie. 

Constant reflection these days. It's a compulsion in the most frantic, deprived, verge-of-death way you can think of. I've described it all in putrid detail for years, now.

"Hey, how are you?" Is the death penalty, for whoever asked the question. Unsuspecting, and it's unfair on my part - forcing them to play Russian roulette with a fully loaded pistol. Immediate and final. 

Another thing you might think is impossible, is getting better. When you're twenty-one, you start to get scared of aging, and your conscience starts to acknowledge the notion of consequence. That's when you come out of the cage. But the thing that doesn't change, the thing that will never happen, the real impossible thing is - you can't pray to god when he has cut your hands off.

Reviews

[Richard simpson]

wow. I am left speechless by the thoughts and feelings in this. It's awesome and great and everything in between. The prose structure, the symbolism, everything is on point. This is brilliant.