Sitting here in Tompkins, it all comes rushing back
The empty stares and bloodshot eyes,
Shooting dope and smoking crack.
Tiger is on the corner shouting "it's the first day of spring!"
Everything is gone to me, all my belongings in the pawn shop, sold.
It doesn't matter what season it is, my heart is always cold.
They kick me out of the basement and now I have no place to sleep.
So I rob a man, cop a few backs.
Get high in a public bathroom and weep.
My eyes are brimming with tears as I walk down down the street.
They're silently screaming help me to every person I meet.
But I cannot let the world see me cry, they cannot know my tears. The world is a big bad place and it cannot know my fears.
I'm waking up next to the East River, I'm only 19 years old.
How did I get this way, what happened? I was always a good girl and did as I was told.
Mommy, where are you?
Mommy can I please come back?
My father has left me and you will too
I'm sorry.. I'm sorry. But this is what enfolds when your daughter does smack.
I'm in Denver now still miserable, I am so far away.
I swallow my pride and lie when they ask if I'm okay.
I'm staying in a crack house, my arm is infected, I'm scared.
"Help!" I tell them. "Please take me somewhere safe."
They roll their eyes and laugh, they say there's no such place.
I overdose, my heartbeat stops for two minutes. Then I snap back to life.
"******* it!" I yell "why didn't I just *******  die?"
I try again and fail twice.
My time is running out, I can't take this **** anymore. But when it comes to that needle.. For her I'm a ******* *****.
My arm though.. My ******* arm. It's getting worse. Five times is size, filled with ****, it's so ******* sore.
I take a breath. It's early morning. I grab my things and run for the street. I'm sorry to my friends.. But my promises I can't keep.

A thousand more miles away now, my arm is still throbbing, lying in a hospital bed. Hooked up to a million machines, my doctor saying he's surprised I'm not dead.

This is what I think about, just so you're aware.
This is what I think about, alone in Tompkins Square.

Junk sickness unearths this
Deep-rooted, oozing desperation.
Slack jaws,
Eyes
Bouncing in the back of your skull.
Tear through the paper flesh,
Scraping for a vein
Needing of
Molestation,
Mutilation,
Shredded from that constant need,
That whining itch,
To feel nothing
And everything all at once.
Praying for the earth to melt
Around the bare bones
Of the walking dead.

I am
But an observer
Stuffed in the back seat
While needles clog,
Blood surges,
Rage stirs.
I am
Just a spectator
To their universe coming to a
Creeping
Dull thud,
As they dream of better days that will
Surely come.
I am
Not sure
If it's possible to dig yourself
Back up
From the depths of a self-made grace.
I am
Not sure
If there is life after dope.
Lust swelters,
The shot is done,
We drive on.

And as you fill my senses with the empty sweet numbness, I think I'm ready to stay with you. My heart beats slowly and eyes lower like a well behaved child in the church pew and my head tilts towards the ***** ground it feels like home but I know it's prison. Like a pure white dress that fits just right, but maybe too tight. The powder white lace choking my neck as I reluctantly walk down the aisle to my imminent demise. I thought I was ready to stay with you forever. To keep you close in my pocket, to consume your little moments of paradise. Till death do us part. Till you suffocate me, leaving me to die. Marrying my abuser, inhaling you through my nose, clogging my emotions. Blocking my thoughts. As the priest tells us to say our "I do's" I look towards the sky and like a runaway bride I demand my freedom. Crawling through the church door. Leaving your sweet gritty taste in my throat behind. And leaving with you my chains you lovingly wrapped around, demanding I stay. But I will always remember you. Always, as something old, something new, something borrowed, and something that has left me blue.

You're on my brain like ******
I gave you chance didn't expect a thing
You got me higher than a kite
The lighter brighter than my future
I got addicted
I needed more of you
My head was scrambled
My only thoughts were of you
They saw what you did to me
So I went through rehab
But it hurt cause I knew you were the best high I'd had
I got desperate held on to you with everything I had
But I knew I didn't get you high
So I forced my self to stop abusing you to try and get the high I wanted so bad because I knew you weren't flying in the same wonderland
I got myself off of you picked up where I left off
I started doing better
My creativity faltered by my logic took hold
Then came a chance for one last hit
Just a goodbye i said
After all I'm over it
I had told you I was done
Just one last hit can't hurt me
I knew there was a chance I might get hooked
But it was to late I set my own trap
Just that one last hit
Got me hooked again
You seem bright again
Kind to me again
But is it because I've recovered for all you know
Or is it because you gave me back your soul
Do you care
Or do you wish I didn't
If I dare ask you this question
Would you drop it
Or finally listen?
You left me with so many scars
But your as bright and as clean as ever before
But that's how it works isn't it?
The ****** doesn't get high
Only its victim.

Quicker than a speedball
I'm going nowhere fast
Happiness in a spoon
To send me to the moon
Amongst bliss and oblivion
My demons finally rest
& again begins my cycle
The chase that never ends

Going Nowhere Fast

Reality hits
I'm too weak to hit back
I want it all, I need it all
My morals start to bend
& then they start to break
I swear, I'm trying to do my best
Until my next mistake

Going Nowhere Fast

I'm trying to break the cycle
This obsession just won't die
The guilt & shame destroy me
Until I go get high
This stranger residing within me
Won't stop till she gets her fix
She'll never be happy
Till I'm nodding with an itch

Guess I'm Going Nowhere Fast

you cut the brown boy
into two lines while i roll a dollar bill
you're telling me about how i should let you shoot up
just once
so you can know what it's like.
i loved the way ****** tasted, the way it felt sitting in my nose.
unlike blow or pills, you don't let it drain into your throat
it just sits there
and pushes into you.
you cut the brown boy
and when we snort it it tastes like sugar
sweeter than the coke cut with B12 that had me up all night
and i can taste it all over my body
like the sour sweet is pacing through my body to the beating of my heart
i feel it in my arms
i feel it in my nose
i feel it between my legs.
i felt so warm, and then i was on top of you.
kissing on your neck and grinding on your lap, i can feel your heartbeat and it is so
s
l
o
w.
the sun is setting outside
and your skin is ignited with the orange flame.
you taste like cherries and cucumbers and ******.
the warmth is even brighter when you are inside of me,
i am holding you so close that i'm scared if we go still we will just
melt into each other.
"i love you
i love you
i love you" we whisper back and forth;
you grip my hands while i ***

we're outside for a cigarette in your car
we're going to go buy some molly in a city far away
your eyelids are still sagging
and everything is still so slow
i can see the yellow of the nicotine in the smoke.

I met Sally on the hill with a nickel bag of ******.
      She didn't pay me in money.
Instead, information and a little persuasion made the baggie leave my right back pack pocket
     “Dollars could never have made sense of it anyway
          We throw pennies away opting for the opulence that big bills entail
   Retail will never amount to the amount I've blown on blow”
    Or so she said behind Louis Vuitton shades shielding eyes half dead
           A ****** with a monkey on her back fed by a steady stream of opiates
       “I open this line of communication so you can see we lack foundation and stability and yet
      We're trying to build a sand castle with all the powder we can possibly get
And if we're forced to forfeit that fortress, we snort more, still trying to forget” and with that she placed her sunglasses on top of her head

     I stood back with my back pack and I finally understood
                               Why drugs will make you richer than working ever could
                   They bag a gram put it on the scale and tell you what it weighs
      But they don't tell you how unnoticeable it is when your life slips away

         We sell the dream, we sell the aesthetics
    The drugs, the parties, the scene with guest lists
     Invincibility
        Pretty lights.
                Fun. All a lie.

*I almost fell on my face walking down the hill, staring into those blue eyes over my shoulder all the while.

(The Art of Failing Goodbye)

I covet your closeness; how could I not? You were my world once upon a mime. Honestly. Though my pride will deny it, our demise left me discarded. Hiding amongst the few collateral souvenirs: stupidity and bitterness.

I bestowed to you the best of me; although you never asked me to. My heart, body, and soul - yours for the taking - a decision made on my own accord. Because you never asked me for any of it. You never asked me to do the things I did. But I loved you - innocent as that. Thus, relinquishing logic entirely.

Hardly more than a stranger, I felt I knew you; unaware of the lidded fabulist within. A mere tourist of my chassis; enthralled by my looks. Enthralled by just me. “In love” so deep, you attempted suicide twice. Upon my rejection – in theory. They almost beat you to death, and left you to the wolves. Deserved it? An understatement tenfold. And yet. My compassion was what saved you.

I protected the same entity who pulverized my own.

They all said you were no good – they said a mythomaniac would leach onto me until there was nothing left, ****** dry – then you would leave. Onto the next; life on the move. Daddy said you’d leave me in shambles. Was he right?

…Duh.

A question sheathed in rhetoric; absolutely. A black hole does not give back. Wake UP, m Maple – Ali – Oliver – whatever you are today.mWake up, you ******. And look here.

You ruthied(sp?) me last Halloween, took my body as your own, enabled a cycle I’ll no longer accept. The girl who cried ****…an alias to forever haunt me.

No one believed me then. Why would they now?

This final hurrah; a Halloween blackout. Wherein, you personified my worst nightmare. A cruel and unusual punishment – at best. And then.

You slithered and slinked away; no apologies – no goodbye for me. You’d taken all of me. Just like they said. All my value – dismembered and pocketed. Off you went…as predicted. Onto the next…life on the move.

You etched your gimmick; smuggling trust; squirreling intuition - these morals I'd entombed - you burrowed away. Promising Eden, you offered a map; directing me as I sailed the route. The garden, however, was not what I found. My catafalque(coffin) negated expectations you set; a utopia of dazzling, abundant nature. For, you'd devised a mousetrap; and I'd glissaded willingly inside…

For the very last time, gaze entwined. Blue on brown.

SNAP.

An island somewhere
The only place with delicacy so rare
Found only by luck, Most would consider me stuck
But I'm living joyously in my delusional haze
No longer counting days
Since I lost ten through twenty
There is happiness in my veins
Believe, I have plenty.
The hunger is perfectly numb
What shall I dine on next
Perhaps a thumb.