Listen, I understand that being happy isn't all that artistic.
That loneliness, anger and self hatred are trendier
than being content.
Unrequited love, jealousy and deep-seeded unquenched desire
mathematically recorded in clever metaphor and
unexpected similes simply sell better than stanzas
sifting and shifting to shape a smile.
But writing is a form of expression, I can only mirror myself.
If only I could express to you fully how amazing it feels
to finally look into that mirror to see me completely
with every flaw, every blemish,
every pimple, every crazy strand of curly frizzy hair,
every tan line, every inch of stretch-marked blotchy skin,
every pet peeve, every tear, every inch of stubbornness,
every reckless thought, every word I've desperately written,
every choice I ever made and truly love every bit of it.
I imagine it feels like moving the ocean; I'm a shining beautiful moon.

I remember when all of my answers fit inside a pill
Extended release, 30mg, tiny little white beads shake around loudly
like the panicked thoughts in my head
The amphetamines would run through my blood stream hungrily
looking for neuron receptors to prey upon,
sitting like crisp, new, heaven-scented virgins, fresh meat for the taking.
They'd disguise themselves as endogenous,
as if the body and the brain naturally made this happen,
wanted a gushing current of dopamine to start pouring out
of every synapse, wave after wave of artificial pleasure,
euphoria, focus, mania, sweeping me off of my feet
into a world run by pharmaceuticals. In my mind,
problems literally could not exist - the chemicals taking over
my midbrain would not allow it. Palms sweaty, heart pounding,
pupils dilated, I would be taken over by chemically-induced content-ness, a happiness high. And that was all I wanted.
Wrestling with addiction isn't fighting if you want it.
I was never fighting with Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, or Focalin,
I was avoiding them: you cannot truly fight the ones you love.

And then I stopped wanting them.
They sat in my drawer untouched for days, weeks, months.
I found better pleasure centers that went beyond
the ventral tegmental area, the dopamine super highway present
in every human brain.  I found meditation, I found dancing,
I found friends, I found yoga, music, incense, singing
bubble baths with scuba masks, picking apples in the rain,
smelling the sweet thick scent of flowers in the spring time
the taste of fresh pineapple on a summer day,
the crackling sound of golden leaves crunching beneath my feet.
These were answers to questions in the deepest parts of my soul
that went untouched by man-made substances inside a prescription bottle.
I felt like I had finally awaken in my life, I had finally arrived
in this moment: fully, freely, confidently and full of love.

People told me I'd be an addict forever, I thought I would always
be haunted by the demon voices that lived under my bed
when I was alone and unguarded. But here I am, the real me,
the dark, thick, medicated sludge covering my true self
has been wiped away completely, like snow melting off of flowers.
The only part of me that is upset is the part that knows that
the four final papers I have will not write themselves. But none of
that seems important anymore. Mostly, I am relieved. I am free.
I feel like I conquered a terminal illness, a fully recovered brain
cancer patient that never touched chemo and kept all their hair.
Who knew all the answers I thought were in a pill
were always right in front of me, in the now,
in the constant, colorful kaleidoscope of present moments
happening to me that I was ignoring.
The answers were inside my Self all along, all I had to do
was stop thinking, look closely, listen carefully, and trust deeply.

Life is Like a Tree.
A huge spiraling tree stretching stretching STRETCHING
toward the sky with enormous tangling never-ending roots
attaching it to the universe below,
the universe not just being dirt and clay, but you and I,
everyone and everywhere, connected and wrapping around
each creature, each animal, every single THING
every single everything that makes up the world, known and unknown.
The towering branches with their extended long thin fingers touch
every star, every planet, every cosmo
because we are all connected like such;
each bit of nutrients, water, life itself flows through all of us
in this rushing, bubbling, constant current.
You can hear its murmurs and love-filled whispers
if you are quiet enough.
Hush, be still, listen right now in this moment.
You can hear its gentle humming on the breeze,
you can hear it in each kiss the shore gets from the sea.
You can hear it inside seashells, or when a bird sings.
You can hear it underwater, and on a butterfly's wings.
You can hear it in the flowers and even in the snow.
Once we recognize this, we begin to grow.
We are so much bigger than we know.

There’s only one tina rage, that’s what they say. But it’s only because one is enough chaos for a million.

It’s hard, I mean its easy. It’s easy to be crazy. All you have to do is do exactly what you want to when you want to where you want to without a single ******* thought at all.  It’s easy to just wreck havoc and release all the awful energy building inside you. Its like if you don’t release it, explosion is inevitable.  My energy will spiral into itself and gather so tightly it will have the gravitational force of a black hole, pulling all in its orbit into absolute darkness.  Any that try and fight the tugging will stretch into spaghetti, bones broken and organs useless.  The end of my world would start with my attempt at containment.

But you know what is hard? Accepting that part of your personality is “bad”.  That it is toxic and maybe even lethal.  When others sense your ego dripping with this dark, goopy essence, they run as fast as they can.  no one wants to hurt. No one wants my hurt. No one wants the crazies. No one wants me.

It makes me cry that I have to apologize for who I am, because it is an inconvenience for others.  And it hurts so much, my muscles bleed and scream as I try to hold this huge part of who I am in some deep cavern inside myself.  As it grows, I’m running out of room.  Its squishing into my kidneys, puncturing my lungs with its pointy claws, eating golf-ball size holes in my brain for its dark beady eyes that can now see what I see.  

But the rejection I face whenever this demon seeps out of my pores hurts more, so I continue to let it eat through my flesh until I rot into the very ground I continue to damage with the uncontrollable fire that burns in my soul.  Nothing hurts me more than the cold, metallic, damp, dark feeling of being alone.  I’d rather my heart fever and blister from the heat of my flames than freeze around a heartbeat.

So if having a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, another body to warm my chest that grows ever colder means fighting who I am, so be it.  They say no one can be youer than you, but it is possible to be too youer for you?  I don’t know of many ways I can successfully seal this destruction inside of me with concrete.  It’s bled into almost all of me now, so that the two energies that wage war in my body are now turning into one, a new unit consisting of two ever-fighting yin and yang.  Now the only way to stop myself from harming the people around me is to turn all the energy off.  I need to go to the very source and power down all emotions.  Certain substances do a very good job blocking the synapses that are surging into overdrive.  But Ritalin doesn’t know how to pick and choose.  But I do.  And I choose living like a zombie over living like a martyr.  

There’s only one tina rage, and even that is too much. Too much rage for one world to hold.

I haven’t written anything in a long long long time.

I feel so old.  I feel like an old woman whenever im crashing. Or thinking, actually.

I don’t even know where to begin.

i haven’t even written anything yet and my eyes are welling up.  Its so ******* hard, everything is so ******* hard.

I remember when I wrote that speed makes everything easy.  And it does, but only for a little while.   Now, everything is broken.  Nothing feels right.  Actually, nothing feels like anything anymore.

Now, I need it.  So. *******. Badly.

24 hours.  Exactly 24 hours.  That’s when the withdrawals start every single time.  Sometimes I’ll withdraw by accident.  I’m so caught up in my life I forget that I’m a sorry ******* speed freak, I’ll forget I’m an addict.  I’ll forget I’m a low-life pill head and I won’t feed the growing monster inside me.  But it doesn’t give up that easily.

I’ll feel it in my head.  It starts with this blossoming pressure headache, right between my eyes, on that bone between my eyebrows.  It feels hot, stabbing, relentless, constant.  It feels like my skull is bleeding.  I can’t see, I can’t look at light.  I wear dark glasses to hide my eyes, haunted by demons and ***** chemical desires.  My limbs shake, my head spins, I feel like I’m about to pass out, throw up, not really sure, maybe even ******* die.

But they have pills to fix headaches.  Excedrin became my best friend.  

Then started the manic depression.  Unpredictable, wild bi-polar mood swings that drove me insane.  I got so low once, I didn’t leave my bed for 36 hours.  Didn’t brush my hair, my teeth, nothing.  Just lay there crying.  Cried about the life I was ruining, my beautiful family I was letting down, the friends I couldn’t bare to see anymore.  I was so emotionally fragile, one wrong comment and I burst into tears.  I felt lost, I felt alone, somewhere dark, deep, deep down in a cold well by myself, shivering, afraid.  But I didn’t know how to word it, I only knew how to cry.  

My only escape was sleep.  Until it wasn’t.  Speed was greedy, it took that from me.

I started having crazy narcoleptic sleep-paralysis night terror episodes.  I can only describe them as slightly schizophrenic.  I wouldn’t remember falling asleep, and something normal would happen.  I’d be sitting in my bed, and then I’d fall and slam my face in a floor full of glass.  I would try and move, but I would be paralyzed.  Then I’d blink and I’d be awake, confused, as to what was happening to my sanity.  Dreams and reality cross, and I cannot longer differentiate between the real world and my imagination, ridden with monsters.  I started to hallucinate, spiders coming to get me.  I’d sob because suddenly I had nowhere to run to, I was no longer safe even in my dreams.  I am a slave to my poisoned mind.  The lack of sleep made me further depressed, dangerously suicidal.  When I slept, I would sob and yell out horrible things.  I’d cry and say I wished I would die.

I’m too sad to eat, too diseased to sleep.  I have no motivation in my life anymore to do anything.  My problem ruined my life.

I never feel happy anymore.  Now I yearn to just feel normal, or at least rid enough depression to not be suicidal.  And I miss feeling happy.  I used to be so ******* happy, and I abused it.  I took advantage of my gushing dopamine, never imagined a life without it.  I never thought one day I would need a substance to feel “okay”.  

The only thing that makes me happy now is a lot and lot and lot of speed.  But I know it’s only temporary, and only further buries me in this awful cold place I inhabit now.  

No one can help me, there is no comfort, no warmth, nothing that makes me feel less isolated, less ****** up.  I am ashamed.  I hide from the people I love, and cry from homesickness and loneliness.  But I can’t let them see what I did to myself.  Even now my fingers shake from the tears I’m fighting back as I think about my triplets, my little brothers, my kitten, my best friends, all so far away in the past, in beautiful sunny memories I keep tucked away in notebooks and pictures.  I think about my grandma, my mom, my godmother, and I whimper in shame.  I miss them all so much. I just want to go back and fix everything, but I can’t.

I can’t tell them.  They wouldn’t understand.  They would hate me, disown me, never speak to me again.  I’m so delicate right now, that rejection would push me over the edge, finally **** me.  I’d rather have them all think I’m a selfish, lazy idiot than a drug addict.  

It all just makes me cry.  I’m so lost in this awful mess.  So alone.  I miss my old life, I just want to reverse it.  But its not that easy.  

Why is it that after all this, I sit here now, fighting the urge to put another pill up my nose? WHAT THE **** IS WRONG WITH ME?

Why do I still want them? WHY? It is 2 in the ******* morning, why can’t I just come down and stay there?

I guess I’m scared. Scared to face what I have to.  Negative emotions, withdrawals, the inevitable.

But why must I binge? Why can’t I regulate? I guess that’s the definition of an addiction, a lack of self control.
Ah, the inner turmoil, the war raging inside me is slowly destroying me.

I can’t stand it. I’m sure soon I will die.

I am a creature of habit

I keep thinking wowohwowohwowohwowohwow how things CHANGE man things have changed SO much it's amazing it's incredible unbelievable overwhelming unfathomable unable to have ever predicted that here we would be hugging outside of the ADC no longer with forced smiles from clenching teeth and wicked, glassy marbles for eyes

Yet here I am still pick-pick-picking at the skin on the side of my thumb

Isn’t It Weird, I Mean Wired, I Think I Mean Weird Wait

Wait

Wait

Please

Don’tGo

Hold on, wait things haven’t changed at all, I’m thinking about the fall, thinking about the fall when the leaves were changing and so did we, permanently.  I think about the night we stayed up until the sun came up touching and talking and nearly dying one powder-filled capsule at a time.  I’m thinking about hallucinating black spiders crazy coming at me, grabbing me, surrounding me, consuming me until it seemed like there was nothing left of me at all

Except spiders, spidery veins, spidery ribs poking out from my spidery skin in every which direction with my spider tired eyes sinking into my spider tired mind

I’m thinking about another sleepless night, countless by then couldn’t remember the last time we really drifted off together into deep, peaceful rest.  We lay there at rock bottom which really turns out to be just another K hole but no amount of sticky sweet sugar will get you out.

And I took your hand in mine and said man we can’t stay like this, I looked at the spider cracks in the ceiling that matched the creases in my shaking hands and realized we changed or died.  

And I chose life.  I bent my knees and pushed up as high as I could off of the cold blacklight-lit lumpy, stained mattress on the floor we laid on because there was no other way to go but UP.

I climbed and climbed and I felt crushed beneath depression and exhaustion that latched on to my back like long-forgotten heavy backpacks full of stones and I wasn’t exactly sure who they belonged to so I carried them with me.  

The demons in my eyes started to dissolve into puddles that leaked into my lungs so I coughed them out violently night after night for weeks that seemed to stretch into years.   When my eyes managed to flutter shut for a moment I was immediately propelled into night terrors that had me screaming, crying, begging for a different life, a different night, for someone, something please save me from myself

It’s weird that that someone ended up being me

SORT OF. SORT OF is me, because I still am my own worst enemy.  I’m fighting this never ending battle in myself with myself, and I think of all these things I changed but here I am HERE I AM AGAIN listening to those same sweet whispers from under my bed, those **** demons that tell me we can just do it for a little while just to be better for a little while to not feel tired lets get wired **** everything lets get high

I’ve grinded out the sharpness of my teeth, just like I’ve grinded out the sharpness of my words, and grinded out the sharpness of the dark contrast against the images of memories of artificial sunshine happiness in my mind, my dopamine pathways have been long hibernating but unlike predictable seasons I'm unsure of when exactly spring will come, or if the groundhog will forever fear its shadow, a demon that reminds it of speed monsters it could never overpower.  

I feel like each relapse is worse than the last, like I lose another piece of me, shave off another few years of my life one heart palpitation at a time, and each time it takes more and more to finally feel fine

But there’s so much to do and so little time, so many tears to cry and no one to care, and no matter how many friends I have how many coffees I drink how many hours I sleep there’s only one thing that really makes me feel like I’m so recklessly alive

A creature of habit, I mull these thoughts over and pick my thumbs raw.

Your lips say I love you
But your hips have bite marks
That don’t belong to me
How can I ever believe you?


There is nothing quite like
The tingly anxious butterflies
Of new love, like breathing
In the first fresh flowers of spring

And there is nothing quite like
The suckerpunch to the gut
Of love’s betrayal, leaving you
gasping for air sharp as razorblades