Alive and chilling

I was on suicide watch before Christmas and have spent the days after it seeing family and psychologists. I will post before the new year, and I've been in much better spirits. Check my twitter if you've been curious about what I've been up to.
Love you all,
Lucy

Winter Time

"You need them." He snapped.
Anger began boiling in my stomach, 'don't tell me what I need or don't need, I've been handling my own use just fine for six years thanks, I got it down,' so I said "No, I just want them. I want them for today." I'm waiting for my usual source to arrive for Oz, so I gotta go to get some expensive shit. There are some other morfiends in the area who are also always on the hunt, so sometimes stock can get pretty low.

I don't feel guilty... or at least I try to push it down as much as possible.

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The comedown, so sickeningly long and inevitable, it reminds me why I cling to my small bits of normalcy. But everything will get better, it always does. And one day I will too.

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Sunday mornings and Sunday nights are so melancholy for me, knowing the weekend will soon be over and back to all the troubles of work and bills and life. It's funny because I work when I want, so I will have to work later; it's something I've held on to since being in grade school (my mom called it the "Sunday blues").

I haven't done coke in over a month and I've stopped the tea for the past few days (because there isn't anymore). But this speed is picking me back up, and I don't feel as drained as I did a few minutes ago. All that remains is my headache and my picking up energy levels. The TV is showing some movie with Bill Murray--playing every camp counselor I ever looked up to. I try and pretend I don't feel guilty about anything because I have nothing to feel bad about. I remind myself we've done it for millions of years, and that's why our brain responds to it and that life is merely a state of being. The past few weeks have been mostly focused on staying afloat and getting ready for the holidays. I hope that they are fun and that it is a nice break from reality.

I feel my age the way someone double my age might, or is that my actions weigh heavier than those of my peers. Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? It's like I'm trying to prove to everyone I'm an adult, but really want to be treated like a child because I don't know what to do. I guess it all falls into place and everyone gets used to it as time goes on or something.

If life is a state of being, and I intend to fill it with pleasure as much as possible (because I prefer pleasure to pain as I experience it), and so isn't that what's most worth while? I mean, that's not to say I don't enjoy being able to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly, or a warm place to sleep, or somewhere to call my own, I am fortunate to have kept it going this long, even though I know it will all evaporate eventually. But no matter what, we live and die all the same, aren't we both so lucky to be alive at all?


Lucy

Pushing

All the feelings
down the hole they go
with the pills
and the tea
and the weed
and the speed
and anything
that will keep me from dealing with any of the shit that bubbles up from my guts when the memories sprout up like weeds between my pretty poppies, the only thing to do is to nourish the garden with more seeds
and pretzels? No, they're for my stomach virus, so I can keep some food in my gut.

------2am unable to sleep, smoke heavy air----------

R is asleep, snoring rhythmically in the other room while I watch "Naked and Afraid" and puff on a bowl. He might be fired tomorrow because they don't care that he has a stomach virus, but blame him for missing 3 days of work even though he is simply very sick. His boss has basically been trying to get him to quit by making his work-life miserable, so him getting fired would be a  good thing. My parents think so too, and would help support us--thank Jesus for denial. I feel like I might vomit, which would be funny since earlier I cheered on R vomiting; congratulations on his first opiate induced vommiting fun, or maybe the virus, but who can tell. oh oh oh oh my stomach hates me, but the weed and the Bentyl keep it bay. Who knows for how long, but at least one more night right, 6 more hours please that's what I need, just a little more....why is there never enough of everything?

This show is fucking ridiculous. Every time I watch (okay, so only like 2 or 3 times late at night) I question why anyone would agree to do this. I guess everyone tests themselves in some ways, and for them it is as close to dying as they can get, I do the same thing but use a different method.

It's all the same in the end,

Life keeps going.
Time continues.

Baby, it's alright!

-Lucy

Back on the Yellow Brick Road

I've spent almost a week off of the tea (let's call it Oz, like the Wizard of Oz, my friends and I have decided this is good slang that we should propagate). The bottle is so hot, the contents like coffee grounds and animal piss heated together, at least I hope it'll keep the tears at bay. Our apartment is hot like an oven, or maybe it's my fever, R and I are both battling off a stomach virus for now. At first I vomited last Wednesday night, sitting on the toilet unsuspecting that I had guessed the wrong end and finding myself and floor of my parent's bathroom violently soiled. As with any illness at a parent's home, my mother and father  cleaned it up, ushering me off to bed with a washcloth and glass of water. It had caught me off guard, I felt bad but too sick to do anything more than fall into a instant, overheated sleep.

By now, I'm finally comfortable full of Oz, green, and Bentyl--a stomach medicine for the virus. I sink back into the futon and stare off at the TV. This whole week I've been having crying spells uncontrollably because of multiple changes to my daily antidepressants. My face shriveling and turning red, as loops of horrible thoughts go through my brain and my mouth spills out "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry" between crying and hyperventilating. My only respite was sleep. Even my mother patting my head and comforting me or R holding me and reminding me it would be alright, nothing could quell my sense of hopeless despair.

Despair at who I am, who I could be, and the guilt of putting my family and boyfriend through this when we should be enjoying Thanksgiving and Chanukah. At least we lit the candles most of the nights, which made me happy with memories of childhood Channukah's spent at my grandparents' house with my great-grand parents there as well as my parents and my aunt. I was the only child, but in the darkness of that dining room I felt the magic of those glowing candles and the words sounded out in a language I have still never learned. It connects me to what feels like old world magic.

--------back to real life---------

The toilet just overflowed. Diarrhea and urine and bile and water spilling out across the fake marble towards us. R standing in the bathtub, attempting to break the clog with a metal stick, I imagined him a fisherman before B.C.E. in some fertile valley among reeds. I tried to stem the flow with towels and bath mats and paper towels, each of us with one glove on fighting off this battle of the black water. Our dance away from the streaming tides made me chuckle, like I hadn't chuckled in days.

Sometimes life is ridiculous.

-Lucy

Out to the Island

In a half an hour, I have to leave for the subway so I can head out to discuss a band R, our friend Collin, and I are putting together. It's a comic book band--everyone is a character, and it has a whole story behind it. All for fun, of course. I woke up at noon today, feeling guilty that I hadn't done any work today and would soon be in Long Island discussing characters and working on music, followed by a party at someone's house. We're all into speeeeed, so once we all get together to work on the band we'll be off and running. It's fun, these speed parties we have with Collin, a nice follow up to our tea party with Alexis.
I've just popped my orange tablet of dexy, just to keep me going while on the train. Right now I'm reading The Petting Zoo by Jim Carroll, but I want to finish it so I can start Going Down by Chris Campanioni and then all the other books I have waiting patiently for me to crack their spines. I figure this will give me some extra focus, and I definitely won't miss that train.
Unless... should I make tea? Will I be okay without it today? The majority of the people we know with H/roxy hook ups out there are trying to get clean, although it's not easy when half of the people on the island are into it as well. If I get sick, the effexor should help me because it antagonizes opiate receptors, but I guess Collin could help us out. What if I've already habituated my body to it and I don't realize it but I'm going to get really sick tonight? These questions run around my brain, but I've already decided not to make tea.
I hope it's the right decision... but only time will tell.

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Out the train window I watch as suburbia spreads out undisturbed by the rumbling metal coasting past it. All of the trees seem black and veiny against the Autumn sunset, ready for night to fall down upon them. The houses talk about the possible people and lives played out inside, as well as the silent spaces around the tracks hidden from their view. Kernels lay around my feet from my frenzied inhalation of the Penn Station popcorn, guilt creeps in and I think about picking them up instead of leaving them for some unknown forces to dispose of later. The sun flickers on the seat in front of me as I review all of my worries for the upcoming weeks (mostly bills). I try and push them away, reminding myself that none of those problems are life or death, that it will all work itself out, that like the sun setting to my right I will arise tomorrow regardless. Constantly hoping that my delicately constructed life will not be destroyed by my mismanagement.

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Once off the train, R picked me up and we sped to Collin's parent's house. Upon arriving and greeting Collin in the street, he ushered us inside, past his sweet, waving grandmother, and down a flight of tiled stares into his well-sized basement apartment. His friend was already sitting down there and quickly stood up to shake our hands. The odd sense of returning came over me as I looked down at the color-block rug and mostly barren walls, although I had never been there before. We each took our places around the room, Collin and his friend on a loveseat, to their right myself on a tall wooden barseat, and next to me on my right R sitting on a small foam boat seat. Each of us popped or railed another 30 mgs of bright orange speed, the lines hammered out across a statistics book that now only served as a hard surface for chemical consumption or writing. I looked around the room at each of the men conversing, lacking any desire to contribute to the conversation. Professionally shot portraits of Collin were hung all over, their stoic gazes stood in juxtaposition with living Collin's frenzied outbursts of ideas. R and Collin commenced working on songs based on some topics Collin had already conceived, and riffs R had been unable to use in another project. I sat and watched as they swirled around me, occasionally interjecting with an idea or rhyme. Hours passed us by unnoticed, as we diligently worked on solidifying our ideas for the songs and the conception of our band, while his friend played Mario in the corner on Collin's Wii. We carried on like this, pausing for me to paint Collin's nails and for him to try and cut his friend's hair, in the constant yet unguided way that tweekers get things done.


I couldn't help myself from cracking open The Petting Zoo whenever conversation turned towards subjects of which I had nothing to add. The need for personal reflection and change within the main character Billy resonates with me deeply right now. All of the emotional angst I've been experiencing mostly surrounds my understanding of what it means to be an adult (and have a career), as well as my relation to my now retired parents, as well as whether or not I want to continue doing drugs. These are apparently integral parts of what growing older means, and I assume everyone goes through them (but I don't really know). I think I am young to already be answering these questions, although I am the one asking them. The truth is:

• I want to pursue writing as a career but I'm scared I can't hack it.
• I don't think I'm very good at being at an adult. I constantly beat myself up about not having my life together or as organized as I would like it to be.
• I am terrified I will never be able [re:want] to quit drugs, which will distract me from using my potential.

I rarely discuss these fears, so that I don't hear the stock response that I am over thinking it all. These are the dangerous traps I've set for myself and now must avoid falling into.

Now that I'm back in Queens writing this all out, I feel unembarrassed and comfortable in the warmth of our apartmen. R and I have spent the past 4 hours reading, and for me writing, together on the futon. I wish nights like this could last forever.

At least they last here.

Until next time,
Lucy

"Needles" (a short story I'm working on)

The poppy tea is wearing off, as I stare at the big, plastic canister of seeds. So glorious are these dreams of euphoria experienced both waking and sleeping, pulsing from crotch to chest to head, and I begin to glow with beautiful, shameless pleasure. The only downsides I've come up with are overdosing and that I can't shoot tea.

My mind wanders back to a week ago in Tompkins Square Park. I was with Liz and her lanky, train-hopping boyfriend Jackson. They generously shared beers out of a large McDonald's cup (a traditional crusty show of hospitality), and in return I gave them a bottle of tea to split (I drank my share at home). Sitting there in the freezing semi-darkness, I realized I hadn't been this fucked up in a long time--it was refreshing like the smell of biting, cold winter early in the morning. I kept refusing to drink more and more as the cup was passed around the circle--not even a circle really, mostly just passing it between themselves. The alcohol made my opiate high even more sloppy, but it didn't matter.

We were all 22 in New York City, at 7:30pm on a Friday night, and I couldn't imagine that there was any other option as fulfilling as our constant conversation and friendly chatter that we were engaging in. 

The smell of piss wafted over from the sandy dog run; I assumed that its pungent stink never really left this area, and maybe never would, it would be the last piece to leave before gentrification completely engulfed us. Fuck. But it felt right to be sitting there, huddled together around the beer.
----[pause talking to R as I write this in our living room]----
"can I have another addy?" 
'haven't you already had another half?' 
"No, I've had one." 
'oh, here you go." 
He places the chalky gem in my hand, I placed it on my tongue like the nuns gave us at Communion only to be struck by the familiar taste of the sickeningly sugary amphetamine salts and binders until it slid out of sight a second later.
------------[speed back up]--------------
People kept walking by, not giving us too much thought, besides when Jackson, in his Southwestern rasp, requested cigarettes. I am confident he asked every one who passed whether they were or were not illegally smoking in the park [it's a 50$ fine in NYC if the cops catch you smoking a CIG in the park]. But all he got were a lot of "no"s and barely audible lies followed by a quickened pace.

I looked to the right and noticed a bit behind us on the path were two youngish adults, perhaps in their late 20s, pushing a plastic lined shopping cart towards our bench. Their forms were barely visible without the street light to outline them against the bushes on the other side of the path.

Immediately I knew they were handing out food to us because we had been given meals by church groups a few times as teenagers in Tompkins, and they usually carried all of their supplies in the same cart-setup. I knew they were approaching us because of how young and dirty we all looked, the young junky with her crusty friends. Atleast, with Liz and Jackson, I did not feel embarrassed that they were coming up to us, just hopeful that their bounty would be good, maybe hot dogs and quarter drinks like the last time 4 years ago.

"Hi, how y'all doing?" she said, her greeting sounded kind and soothing it surprised me, as they stopped their cart in front of us.
"Good" "Okay..." "Fine" we replied some variation of the same sentiment back, knowing to be wary of strangers in the park, but curious of what they might be offering us.
"Would you like any condoms, clean needles, hygiene kits?"
My mind exploded at the word 'needles.' It was like those dreams I have where all I remember are the snap shots of medicine cabinets full of abandoned pill-bottles, my hands about to grasp them, then blank-------I brought my focus back to the park, the cold, the safe shooting supplies within feet of me, then the embarassment: asking for them in front of friends, and all the mortifying implications of admitting this desire. As Jackson and Liz, joked that they could just take the whole trash bag of condoms with them, and they'd be done for the night. Jackson even told them how he had been off the needle and all of his old vices (besides alcohol and weed and anything we give them) for two years now. Shame, guilt, stuck thick in my throat, as my mind attempted to figure out our next chess-move.

"Just condoms!" We all laughed as they hand us bags full of Trojans and information about their LES harm reduction center. The plastic touched my skin, but my mind barely registered it as it continued sucking and salivating over 'needles,' until I heard my voice cutting through the jovial air:

"Actually can I have some needles?"

The entire world hung momentarily still for me--a mixture of fear and self-loathing flushed my cheeks--I waited for her reply, attempting to make a calm face.

She replied some explanation of why I had to join the exchange before I could receive my treats: "Sure, but first I have to put you into the exchange program and give you a card that protects you when you are carrying used needles. That way the cops can't arrest you for them. But you should always wash any reside out of them before you plan to bring them to the exchange; sometimes the cops can arrest you for residue" [the card says otherwise, but the pigs don't respect anything in NYC, I don't even want to think about the beating I'd receive for even being caught with that card].
However, even having to do the necessary paperwork was all fine,  I would have done anything at the moment to get the gifts in that bag, so fixated on the final goal I already smelt the butane in the lighter ready to fire up a shot. I didn't hear the words only the tone of her voice, like a non-profit canvasser trying to convince me that I had enough time today to save the whales and get to my appointment on time. It was all irrelevant to me, all I wanted were those pristine chemical pushers.

Finally, like a child on Christmas, I accepted:
ten 27 gauge, 1/2 cc rigs,
blue medical tie offs,
pre-rolled cottons,
alcohol swabs,
metal cookers,
and bandaids.
I revelled in the thought of all the glorious shots I could, should, and would take. The pleasure already rolled over my body at the possibility of mainlining anything. The big down-side of shooting drugs is that the needle will always call me back, almost making the high secondary. Like knitting, or writing, sometimes the act is more enjoyable than beholding the sometimes ugly creation, but I guess shooting up isn't a hobby or career--well, I've been told it shouldn't be. My eyes followed the volunteers wander off, on to help the other souls hanging off the benches in the park.

I realize I have been fantasizing over this moment since I was 16, the glory of getting clean needles from an exchange; I spent days and nights dreaming about this as I pushed on, trying to use old gummed up, bloody rigs. Because stopping was never my thing. [But I know one day, one day I'll be done...]  I perched high on that bench; I could even get trained in Narcan at the clinic I mused, the thought thrust excitement through my chest. My mind luxuriated in the ecstasy of it all and forgot about all of my desires besides the one to slip my new toys in my veins.

Somehow it all worked out as if I had willed it to happen. In some ways, I did.

-Lucy

Please tell me what you think friends, peeping-toms, and those of you who stumble on to here blindly. I'd love to hear from you or about you or about my writing or anything really! It'd warm my heart (even more than getting needles).

To Be Young is To Be Sad is To Be High

I've spent the week off of my anti-depressant (Effexor) because of an error at the mail away pharmacy my family uses. This is not okay. Effexor withdrawal is horrible, it makes me feel as if I'm in a dream where my body struggles to move or speak while I feel electric shocks running up from different limbs up through my face. Of course, it comes with the usual withdrawal effects, nausea, headaches, bad moods, a bit of craziness, etc. Overall, the worst part is that experiencing all of these things at once makes it extremely difficult for me function. I was finally able to get a version of my medication (IR instead of my regular XR) and I'm feeling so much better. Honestly, being off those meds really scares me because I become very disconnected from my rational inner monologue, and will frequently become self destructive (punching myself, cutting, strangling, etc.). I shouldn't be allowed to be around people at these times because I am too much for anyone to handle.

Today is good though. Last night, I couldn't go see the Sonics with R and our friend Lexy. It doesn't matter because R got kicked out before they were even on. He went out the wrong door to give me a call and see how I was feeling (I skipped out because I had taken my first dose back on my meds and felt very very ill), and the bouncer told him that he couldn't go back in now. R was so stunned that he didn't even say anything back, assuming he was kidding. Even his friend who was running it was unable to help. Lexy is cool because we are both on the same wavelength with chemicals at the moment. She has brought up PST and kratom without me saying anything about them, which is pretty awesome. I'm glad to have a buddy who is trying out the same stuff as I am. She might be getting some opium hash, which I'm VERY excited to try. That would be some magical stuff. Now, R and I are just chilling, as he plays games and I write. His addy prescription came in today, which we took with some tea. I even took my muscle relaxer to help me with the back pain I was experiencing from sleeping so long. My body feels great and balance and beautiful. Saturday is good. Drugs are good. Friends are good. I am good.

But am I?

That was what I discussed with my therapist the other day. You see, as much as I seem fairly brazen about my drug usage and what not, it's not without a lot of guilt and shame that I hold on to internally. It's the ammo I use against myself when people compliment me or if things are going well. "It doesn't matter, cause you're a piece of shit. YOU DO DRUGS. YOU'RE BAD. You might as well have been aborted. You're nothing but broken. You'll always be a junky. You can't even fucking change yourself, how can you do anything else? etc. etc." It's a sick monologue that I can't seem to [intermission for R and I to smoke on 4:20pm] quiet or change. I know that I need to, and that I'm not a bad person simply because I use drugs. My drug use stems from a lot of different things, and was started because of the loss of my grandfather and then being molested by a boy my age. However, I never realized that those two events played a significant role in my first decision to try drugs, but now it seems as clear as ice. It's a big reason I'm going to therapy. I know that there are a lot of past events that I've held on to and allowed to run wild across my mind, which has led me to this point.

That's not to say that it's not my fault that I have a problem with drugs. Every time I take a sip, drag, sniff, poke, it is a decision that solely control [pretty sure my mind isn't controlled by aliens or a computer, but who knows] .  In some ways, I feel very lost when I am only socially doing drugs. My life feels without excitement, or pleasure, or luster because there is no meaningful secret I am ruminating on. I love getting high as well, don't get me wrong. It takes me beyond "wicked" gravity, and lets me flow and dream where I could have never reached. Every molecule of my body feels the music, they are all at a rave and I'm the DJ. I guess it's part of how I identify myself as well. It is the part of me that rebels, sneaks, lusts, enjoys, and runs amok to bring everyone else around to the same level. The good part of my identity looks down on all of thus, and craves for me to straighten myself out. I realized that this is my real inner struggle as I kept talking in therapy. Without a struggle, what goal should my life be pointing towards? I'm not sure, and maybe that's why I cling to drugs. I am terrified of being alone with myself, without the occasional exit into glorious, radiant pleasure.

Gosh, all of this drug talk makes me want to do more, so I'm off until later.

Please comment if you read this, I'd love to hear from anyone who has been reading my blog. And I know people are randomly clicking on this, so please show me some...of yourself?

Thanks and have a lovely weekend!
- Lucy

Sunday Flurries

Why does my body feel as if it's being thrown forward? A constant upward pulling tug from my chest up towards the bright white ceiling. My mind is acceptably empty. The outside world is constantly infiltrating, voices from the TV, rumbles from the subway tracks, the eye movements of R as he looks over his phone.

I'm seeing my new therapist tomorrow, since she thinks it's best that I see her 3 times a week, as opposed to once a week as I expected. I feel a bit more confident and comfortable in my own skin, since I've started. Perhaps my thoughts had been weighing me down all this time, without me realizing the true impact it was having on me. The relief after seeing her, that I got out of the apartment and am working on myself, is so uplifting that it's all worth it. I can feel my personality swelling within my skin and increasing each day a little more. It's funny, I have found that without some kind of chaos in my life, I usually go a bit nuts. I need it to some extent, the danger and shame keep me occupied. But I'm not totally sure if that's true, or if I tell myself that because it doesn't sound so bad as admitting defeat.

My stomach aches now, and the room wraps around me like an electric blanket left on too long. Eyes heavy, Subhumans proclaim "drugs of youth, give me a thrill, give me a headache" as they shut I feel joy surge up through my neck and head. Sunday is not so bad, I guess.

The arthritis in my knees is horrible right now. The season change, and being out of a major medicine, has caused my right knee to barely bend past a 90 degree angle (as opposed to a normal leg, which should be able to make a more acute angle (smaller)). It's the pressure in the air that does it, exerting it's mostly unnoticed energy against my joints. Every step grinds my joints, my body silently screams for relief treading block after block. Sometimes it feels like I'm dragging my body along behind me, weighing me down and tripping up my most simple steps. The crisp gusts of wind which hit today, only exacerbated this sense, and I became so tired and frustrated all I wanted was to return home. At least now I am pain free with my legs kicked out in front of me on our ottoman adorned with a cover I crocheted.

I had an interesting run in on Friday night. My friends and I were out walking about downtown, drinking 22s out of a McDonalds cup and buzzed on tea. At one point we ended up in Tompkins, we positioned ourselves near the dog park at first to see the dogs, and then because it was a fairly unpopulated area (not wanting to have a run in with the cops, fuck that). I hadn't drank outside in ages, or to any real extent in a while, and by the time we were done with all of the beers I was sufficiently fucked up. I could barley keep myself walking along a straight path, with the tea and the beer hitting me strong, when we would get up for them to go find bathrooms. We sat on the bench and reminisced about old friends, the appearance of that new Russian heroin-like shit that rots your skin, people to avoid, other topics of various subjects as well.

"Hey, how are you'all doing tonight?"

A man and a woman approached in the dark with one of the plastic bag lined carts. I immediately realized they were here to provide us with food, thinking we were homeless crusties (my friends are crusties, but aren't homeless). We all said our own version "okay..."

"Would you like any condoms, hygiene products, clean needles?"

They piped up that yeah, we'll take some condoms, you can just leave us that whole garbage bag My had lept at the words 'clean needles' and was now embarrassed into silence. 'Just to have them, I reasoned, in case I want to iv something, but I don't want to admit that in front of themmmm....' It is an ugly thing when you're fixated on the method of ingestion as opposed to the drugs themselves. As all of this runs through my mind, my friend says "No needles, I'm two years clean!" They both fist bump him, and my embarassment spreads through me at my own thoughts. My own crazyassmotherfucking thoughts that shouldn't be thought by anyone, not me never no one.

- Lucy

So Much for the Afterglow

Halloween was pretty amazing. R played a really fun show, and we saw a lot of our friends that we hadn't seen in a year. Even one of R's friends from like 5 years ago came with us, she lives near us which is sick. She's also been trying out PST. Needless to say, it was a good night of craziness, even got a taste of true Long Island hospitality, with a random car circling the show and throwing bomb-bags (yes, the ones from elementary school!) at us.

Tonight was great, as well. Another show, full of cocaine and booze and tea and weed, but great in a different way. All of my old friends were there, both in age and acquaintance, and I felt as if I was 16 once again--a teenager nipping at the heels of the older punks to get in on their conversations. I found out that my hero/mentor/role-model/king/friend of many years had been sober for 5 and a half months. To put it in perspective for you, he's double my age of 22 (so he's 44). He was a lot like myself at this age, I think, a bit out of control and lost. Most of the people around me aren't expected to reach the same goals that have been set for me (graduating from NYU early with a high GPA) by myself and my parents (who have done everything in their power to get me to succeed), or don't have the same issues with drugs that I do, so much that I feel like a lot of them don't understand the specific struggle I'm in. I want to create great work through my life, and become successful, but I know I'm only a few steps away from the gutter or an OD. If he's skirted the same difficulties and come out on top in the end, then perhaps he has some insight that I don't yet. Everyone believes I'm destined for greatness, but all I can see is my future failure. I think it's all related to the fact that while all the "doors" are open to me, I know the possible results of opening the drugs-door: OD, gutter, or stop (aka pick another door). But I don't want to open any door that will shut the drugs one completely and I don't know what career I want, so yeah... I'm trying not to waste so many days worrying about how fucked it allllll is gonna be and just enjoying being young. Maybe that'll lead me somewhere too?

We'll see... for now, we'll sleep.
-Lucy

This is work not play.

I went to my first therapist visit since Junior year of college, so about 2 years. The buildings all crowded together as I looked for the office, so I ended up having to call her to find the right door. Talking to her, I felt as I had pulled out some kind of photo album of my life and flipped through it for her. I lied about the PST and the speed, but told her about when I was younger and our current battles with cocaine. I figure I'll see what she does with that information before allowing anything else too risky to slip out. She asked me how much I was doing a day, but through her Italian accent I couldn't understand, and so she clairified: "a bump, a line, you know? how much a day?" Shoulders shrugging for emphasis as if the question wasn't already staring me in the face. "A gram...a gram and a half a day...." "When was the last time you used cocaine?" "-----------------------a week or two ago." The words 'this morning' spun in my mind as I felt around for the appropriate expression. Needless to say her original impression of me as "just a baby" because of my birthday became something a bit less wholesome by the end.

Of course, telling her that only doubles my nervousness about having dinner with my parents this weekend. I'm always convinced they're about to call me out and send me somewhere...even though it hasn't happened yet.

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Now that the coke has been done for hours, R is asleep in bed, and I'm trying to get hours done for work, all I can think about is making more pst. Although my goal is to stay awake and do work (popped an addy to help get me through the night), I desperately want to get high.

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The speed is pushing me along nicely, keeping me awake, keeping me from getting up and actually making tea. Also, better not to wake R... Somehow I'm supposed to go to have a physical tomorrow, which should be interesting at the least. All I want to do is make tea and write but I have to ignore those urges and press on (I'm not doing so hot stopping myself from writing)...'


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I know I need to change what I'm doing, it's not that I'm stupid. I don't want to. There are lots of reasons why I feel that way, none of which will make any difference because what I'm doing is simply a fact. When I look in the mirror I can see it smeared across my face and my teeth, pin holes absorbing the face of a junky--not beautiful or intelligent or interesting or ugly or boring or fucked--only a junky. And with that mentality I've thrown my life into this hole as far as I could, but sometimes I wonder if I can still somehow reel it back and push myself on towards something different. Maybe this is not my only calling? But in my soul it still resonates true.

Howling through the window, the subway shoots people off to work and back home from the night shift a few blocks away, it cuts through the semi darkness of our living room. My eyes see trails coming off everything as I stare out, but they only catch glimpses of the roaches scurrying along the baseboards. I wish night never had to end, that the drugs and the pleasure and our hiding places never had to be undone; that the requirements of the day time never took effect.

-----------

Lucy

Sunday Morning

Lou Reed is dead. When I close my eyes, I am 17 year old again in the village, the Velvet Underground pressed me on as they hummed in my head phones. I felt completely high on life, higher than I'd ever felt on any drug. The world was beneath me, my converse pulled on by a greater force than gravity as I passed by what was then at least a monument to a time I could only imagine--a time I worshiped as a teenager.

We've got some coke, speed, weed, and some seeds for later. We thought it'd be fitting to pay tribute to him by listening to his songs and getting supremely high. I don't know he was so influential to both R and myself. If you read my old blog, I'm sure you'll have noticed a few posted songs/titles of posts that are Velvet Underground songs. When I was younger, my favorite songs to play on guitar while high were VU songs (i.e. Heroin, Rock n Roll, What Goes On, etc.). It was such a staple, especially when I started using, it felt like it was only appropriate to listen to them.

I saw Lou walking his dog last year as we were walking around the Chelsea art galleries with R and his family for his grandma's birthday. It felt that day as if he had a glowing field around him, we dared not disturb him, but I couldn't help but look on in awe.

"Controlled substances, without the control."

Transportation outside sounds like voices vibrating through the walls. The subway passes louder than the planes overhead, I watch out the window of the cars looking down upon my apartment building. I can see myself on the futon I'm actually sitting on. Nowhere to go, so no subway rides for me.

Tonight I mixed together a classy combo of coke, speed, a tiny bit of poppy tea, some kratom, and a klonopin to fight off my constant sense that the ground is crumbling under me. Weed was smoked, but only a small amount on my part. Sometimes I think that the majority of 'Muricans partakes in weed. Maybe it's because I'm still so young.

Even under everything there is a nawwing desire for more. Jim was right, "someone screams for less, someone screams for more." Then again, my whole theory about "Jealous Twin" is that your jealous twin is the mirror's reflection under the line you're snorting, because they don't get any of those drugs you're inhaling. At the moment I want speeeeed or more pst. Coke is too much of a flirt, I like the ones that stick around. But they're hard to quit. Tonight I'm set on finding some new tricks/treats to add to my repertoire.

Time to make more teaaaaaa...

Pupil check=no difference, but I start to feel it in my stomach--a slight head rush, as I shake-shake-shake the next batch. Cop cars sirens and bullets rain out throughout the game, as R dies on his motorcycle.

2nd batch, and suddenly I feel it race around my head and chest. OH jesus.

3rd batch, seems the best, but maybe it's all of them combining. R and I split only half of what I sometimes do alone, so I'm not too worried about it. I get this batch all to myself. (You don't have to say it, I know I'm tempting fate with a combo like I've taken tonight, but I guess that's what makes fate interesting.(I prefer to think of fate the way the Romans did, your life is a string with certain knots on it--each knot is an experience you must reach, no matter what you do to get to the next)).

Now I'm rambling more than usual, so I'll stop typing for now.

Good morning Friday!
-Lucy

Tea Time

(If you want to follow me on twitter, to get my HighAsBalls ramblings, feel free here)

My eyes burn, but my arthritis no longer hurts and I feel so much more comfortable. So high. I can't imagine how much oxy I'd need to be to prescribed to stop my arthritis from hurting me. It's been so bad the past two nights I've been unable to sleep with out chemical help. I guess that's also the speed we've been taken recently.

It's all to keep me from being depressed out of my skull, wallowing and writhing in my wish for a purpose. That purpose seems to be drugs, and R and the rabbit. Now all I feel is

Sorry, I got my fingers ear deep on a cleaning rampage...still itching, full of thick wax. They're still doing that weird draining thing inside and out. I think it's because I have a deep set infection in them, or because of the black mold on the ceiling of our bath(tub)ceiling.

Midnight is curled up under the sofa...nowait, now he's on his deck outside his cage--perfect place for a bath? Middnight wholeheartedly agrees.
Commotion in the hallway, and he pauses, but then back to bathing.
I listen, but then all we hear is running water, and I feel like I should piss. When I close my eyes I get those chills of goodness-god-holy-sizzle of opiates from my crotch to my head, and I am so happy, I think I should make a tiny bit more tea....

nonono, Idk, I have made it but I'm not sure if I should drink it. My stomach shoots with pain ever few moments, and I wonder what's happening in there. KnockKnock, are you okay there behind my navel?? Fuck, I need to go see a real doctor, my body is in poor shape, but I know they'll know about what I'm doing maybe.... I mean, my parents still don't talk about my teenage drug problem, so now that I'm 22 I don't think they could find out unless I authorized it. Sometimes I wonder if they've picked up and are waiting to spring. But their absence of springing makes that seem unlikely. I don't know how they would let it go on for so long if they knew, and cared, so I guess either they have shite for brains, or don't care. And I don't seem to want to stop, I just trade drug for drug for drug...besides when with my parents (well half the time).

I fulfilled my prophecy I began at 11, when I realized all I wanted to be was a junky. That was definitely not the aim of D.A.R.E., but heroin became a fascination for me. Junkies. Iggy Pop and Trainspotting spun round until I found those glorious pills dolled out in huge quantities before everyone and their daughter started popping them.

Anyway, sleep times.
Good night and sweet dreams!
-Lucy

Tea Time and Kratom too

It's really strange this show "Elementary." I think it's mostly because of how large an impact Trainspotting had on my teenage experience, especially because I watched it on the nod dozens of times (it was chosen after a while because whenever I'd come to I knew exactly what was happening). Is it my head or my lungs that feels as if it could jump out of my chest, rise up and fly away? The joy falls back down and runs over my head.

The rabbit is watching me from his cage--annoyed that I'm up and he's not allowed to run around. He's lately been pissing on the futon whenever he is allowed out at night. At least when he poops it's not such a big deal, since they're tiny and dry (easy to brush off of any surface and vacuumed up). But his pee reeks now that he is all grown up. Today I introduced him to the taste of apples, which he greatly enjoyed. The sound of him biting down, was so cute, a tiny little bunny making such a loud crunch, his chin dripping with juice. He is hard to be mad at, that's for sure, but I'm trying to restrain myself from letting him out at this hour (which is the ONLY time he pees on it) and ruining our futon more.

I went to the psychiatrist today, who has reminded me that I need to find a more fulfilling job to help me figure out my future career... I'm not sure what I should do, but I'm thinking of applying to intern at some publishing house or magazine or other literary house. I enjoy writing, I am a lot better when I'm not totally stoned out, and I think with a lot more reading and practice I might be able to pull out a job in it.


.............................................................................................oh where was I? I don't know, life is so crazy, but right now it feels so simple, with the TV on and the rabbit winding down for night, myself lounging on the sofa, R is already asleep becuase he has to wake up in 6 hours. I think I'll stay up, maybe watch Craigy Ferguson like I used to in high school--so high and happy.

Tonight the darkness feels like a warm blanket wrapped around me. The City and all the strangers and their noise are silent finally, perhaps they've all nodded out already. I guess I'll join them.

Good night for now,
- Lucy

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Awake again. Sweaty and sticky from my few moments trying to sleep in bed, but instead waking up R to fuck and finally going back to watching TV after finishing. My longest friend (I've known her since elementary school) is on skype, so we shoot the shit about our days. Nothing new, but it is comforting. We've talked on AIM/Skype an a semi daily basis for most of our school and college years. Now that she lives in MN, and I'm in NY, it keeps us close...
....at the moment I'm ranting about the dangers of microwaves.

Nat Geo is blathering on about people abusing pills. I stumble on it blindly and smile. I wish I was as stocked as I was at 16, those were the days. Long Island caught on a few years after I did to the point now that ODs, car crashes, and rehab is almost always centering around pills/heroin. Our friend just got out of detox for a week. His parents sent him away or he would not be allowed to live there. A few days ago he called after we had finished dinner. R's on the phone for only a few minutes, sounding positive and upbeat, I watch him pace the floor. I guess I'm the negative one always, so I'm challenging him about how it makes sense that Jake would ask him to help him stay sober. R didn't have an answer besides saying that he is the only one who could talk Jake off the ledge when it comes down to it. I know that's true, but it seems silly. If anyone goes to rehab, and does it, then they should be fucking serious otherwise it's a waste of time... not that I can judge, but I've never gone to rehab and I've only quit because lack of suppppppplly.
Wait.
What?
Too stoned to make sense.

Sometimes I feel bad waatching the people around me get clean, but I know they're all going to be coming back right down like me because we've seen them all do it now hundreds of times, sometimes with different names and faces, but it's all the same.

A junkie is a junky is a junkee right?

https://twitter.com/LucyBookit <-------follow my twitter if you'd like.

Getting high...... (or why I get high)

I'm about to tear up watching Dr. Phil. It feels more pathetic than it sounds. All these people talking about getting molested as kids, and I keep thinking about when it happened to me. I wasn't a child anymore, but I had been just as vulnerable. My grandfather had died only months before it happened, and I was still reeling from that at the time when it happened. But I didn't really make the connection until years later when I reflected on the first time I popped pills.

Now, I pop handfuls of kratom, such inoncuous herbal capsules. They relieve my arthritis pain, which is joyous, and then they make me feel okay. Okay that I'm doing unimportant work, that I'm stagnating today having slept 12 hours, that I feel depressed and hopeless most of the time.

I feel like I'm spinning out daily because I'm doing nothing. Especially now that at 22, I'm the most experienced junkie within the friends that I keep, which always leads to my scoffing at their baby habits. "oh you were doing grams of Molly, hahahaa, but have you ever even shot up? Been in the hospital? Have you ever had to bold face lie to your parents when you were the only suspect? Riggle out of the clutches of well-meaning therapists? Lied to your friends so that they wouldn't drop you?" I admit it's a little cruel, but I shut up when my respect is due to some of my more experienced friends and don't pretend to know what they've been through.

I'm all discombobulated right now, so maybe I'll write more later when I'm a bit less sleepy and more coherent.

Hope you are all doing well!
- Lucy

Puke puke puking

I am sorry for the lapse, I was sleeping perhaps. And now I wish I was, the bile rising in my throat, and electricity running down my bones, and nothing until sunday maybe.... I had just been using Kratom but it's still an opiate antagonist, and if I can't find any seeds tomorrow it's going to get real.

The Warriors play in the background, and I wonder what my mother would think of this. This sickness that I'm consumed by and how hard she had to work to support me up through it, when all she wanted to do was raise me.

But I didn't slit my wrists yesterday so I guess I'm doing okay. R threatened suicide, but I couldn't leave our bunny rabbit all alone, no, that would be irresponsible because he deserves better. I maybe a piece of shit, but I wouldn't leave him without both of us. And now that there is no threat of suicide, and I'm starting to feel sick, all I want is a bag--even that thick erotic heat, as if to taunt my nausea more.

My tongue goes dry, almost numb as the last of my kratom kicks in and my head feels heavy and loose. Maybe I'm just sick from sugar.

Please just let me find some more seeds, amen.
-Lucy

Bye Bye Cocaine, Hello Poppies

The Tea is addicting... I had read that before I had started taking it because, let's face it, it's morphine and codeine which are obviously very addictive. The best part is for my arthritis (I mean, the really BEST part is the high), my whole body feels so much better, even the muscles in my ribcage and discs in my spine.

Tonight I'm seeing my friend from college, who is now moving back to D.C.. I already  miss her a lot. Supposedly, I'm going to meet them at 11pm after they go to a show, but I'm not sure if this is really going to occur. I don't know, my friends have all kind of dropped off from talking to me. It is probably because I had been too depressed/anxious to come out of the apartment a few months ago, and then became addicted to the cocoa, so I have been void this whole half a year. It feels like I don't have any real friends anymore, or at least not any that I can turn to an confide in. This has been known to drive me deeper into depression, as I've experienced this before a few times. Tonight will be good, even if it is sad to see her go. I hope that she comes back to visit soon, and that we can get enough cash together to go to D.C.. The other friend that I'm seeing is moving as well, but only to the Upper East Side--across the water from where I live, luckily. I think that one of my other friends may be reading this, who is also named Lucy. Her knowing my problems with drugs again maybe why she isn't hanging out with me, especially with the shit I've put her through in the past with my issues. I feel rather bad as she's my best friend from college.

I don't know, I just hate to think that I've lost myself  and all of my friends because of that damn powder. Feeling horrible about it and my actions isn't enough, it seems I have given everything away for it--what a shity trade.

Now I'm itching all over. Contentedly, overwhelmingly, high. Whatever to the rest of the world. At least I'll see my friends later, and that is a better high than any drug.

A Pleasant Surprise

Morphine pumps through my brain, rolls around my arms, slides down to my feet, like the mercury from a broken thermometer spreading across the bathroom floor (one of my first memories as a child). I feel higher than I've ever been in my life on opiates, or at least not a high I've gotten to in many years. What a horrible way to waste my young liver, when I could have been wasting it on Tea. And now I remember why I always loved opiates. Somewhere I had lost it during all he coke, but now it's all returned. The scar on my left arm is numb and tingly, as if it remembers too.

This could be dangerous. At least it's not as dangerous as coke monetarily... I feel so idiotic wasting all that money, when I could've been getting THIS high. R is asleep now; warn out from a manic episode this morning after a night without sleep, and then a day full of morphine induced euphoria. I was annoyed at myself because he was even higher than me, since he has no tolerance for opiates--not his deal. I drank the last cup to myself, and he

I could almost nod out right now, the room is a blur of color in front of me, and it feels as if I've lost my stomach in my throat. I want to live here and never ever leave.

I'm tripping somehow, almost. My face is becoming itchy, as it always used to. The parquet floors seem to be sinking in around the bookcase, as if the entire room was really a sink hole. My head is swimming in pleasure, opiate goodness. Thank god I already fed the bunny and gave him water. Now time to wrap myself up in bed, and let myself indulge in this bliss.

Jealous Twin

Highhhher than a motherfucker. I guess we're back on coke. We've been plugging it, which is kind of messy and burns, but it is a lovely feeling once the coke sets in (the actual process is kind of horrible, especially the fear of pooping on R). I do want to shoot some, but I hate trying to find a vein now. The bruises are way too obvious with my friends; I hate the look they give me that says "I know you're back on drugs."

One of our close friends has a new problem with xanies. This is bad because he's had a problem with alcohol for a long time, so he now mixes his whiskey with xanies. My friends dad OD'ed from that combo, as many others have. It's really troublesome, and it feels hypocritical to worry, but at least we don't mix drugs known to cause death. I'm all for getting high, but I don't want to die or my friends to. He is a great guiatrist and has a really great heart, but that doesn't mean he won't OD. That's a big fear for me now... 6 years, and never having had one, I feel like it's only a matter of time. As my dad always says, "it's not if you fall it's when"--and I think the same is true of drugs.

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Ephedrine pumping through me and I feel good. I like it mostly for it's CNS effects, my body feels fucking good. The cocaine trail ended last night, with restless sleep for hours and hours. R called out of work, saying he was sick. We're worried he's going to get fired. The worst part is that his dad works with him, and is a total hardass. He has really driven into his head that he is a complete fuck up, and makes anything he does that is bad come off as if he murdered puppies or something. For someone who has bipolar, it is really fucked up treatment. He already beats himself up all the time for just being him, so the emotional slaughter that his parents creates only makes things worse. It's hard to watch because I love R more than I've ever loved anyone. We really understand each other and  are super interconnected emotionally, so any blow to him crushes me too. I would do anything to keep him happy and alive and with me, and he would do the same for me. He's actually the reason that I stopped cutting/burning/hitting myself and why I promised not to kill myself. Antidepressants made it really easy for me to try it before, so I'm being careful not to let myself get that way again. He gives me a reason to wake up in the morning because I finally have a future I can look forward to, knowing he'll be there with me.

I ordered some Kratom today.  I do love that stuff. It is great for keeping cravings away and getting you high as balls. It is an opiate antagonist, so it feels like some hydro or some oxy. Sometimes you have to take a lot though to get any effects, so even buying a substantial amount can result in very quick finish if you binge them (which is now the only way I seem to take drugs).

I would say the whole binging problem is really what's made my drug problem so bad the past 2 years. Even when I was just smoking weed and sniffing benzedrex inhalers, I'd smoke until I was gone--my head now full of warm, smokey, heaviness. The benzedrex made me talk like crazy in classes, which wasn't horrible besides sometimes making me a bit embarrassed about my domination of the discussions. Speed is great and horrible in binges... you love it when it's happening but by the end you're a tweaked out frazzled mess. Together we can go through about 600mg of addies in 5 days (tops, sometimes only 4). It's badddd, but great. We do get a lot of stuff done then. Cocaine is the worst because it is so expensive, so if you binge it gains horrible momentum. Thinking about it makes you want more and more to keep out the calculations of how much money you've thrown away on powder euphoria. Even with opiates, which I used to having super-human control with, I down 30 percs in a week now when I get my hands on them. Poor R, he left me with a few roxies last year and I did almost all of them without him because I couldn't stop myself. He isn't to into them, so he wasn't very upset.

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My jealous twin is coming out... the sober half of me, who craves coke. It's all around my brain now, and all I want to do is shoot a little tiny bit. R doesn't want me to do it because our first time we both got super sick--we think it's because of the cut. We both had a horrible 8 hour time, vomiting and sweating and shitting. I remember crying sitting on the toilet, as I shit into the bowl and leaned over the shower to vomit. R appeared and began vomiting as well into the bathtub. It was like a nightmare. Then he vomited on the yoga mat, unable to make it back to the bathroom, after laying down for a bit. But I know it'll feel amazing. I just want it. NOWNOWNOWNOW. Put it in my veins and let me go.

Highyah!

cococococococococaineeeeee. Jesus Christ, how I love you. I love you when you're here, and hate myself when you're gone. But you are beautiful as you burn, and pulse back through my body. The complete pleasure flowing through my body makes me miss all of those damn percocets (opiates have the best body high (to me and I think almost everyone else)). I remember now, this is why I got so into it, I feel good, and right.

Focus. Breathe. Let the beat in the back of your neck radiate out. Breathe.

The night is serene and flows out behind my curtains, past the apartment buildings and subway tracks. The bones of the city rattling and rolling off in the background.

Instincts

Something has changed. Today, waiting, I felt no excitement about the drugs, just a nauseous, scared feeling in the pit of my stomach. I recognized it immediately: soon the game will be up with my parents. I know shit is about to go down in our lives. It's funny; being 22 and still fearing my parents will know what I'm doing (because they still help me with rent;/medical expenses since I've only been out of school a few months). The dude hasn't gotten back to me yet, so R and I might not get anything. I don't want to do anything with a feeling like this hanging over me--it'll only lead to........The Dude called, a wash of fear and excitement washed over me, and instinct took hold. I didn't even realize what I had done until the words were out of my mouth, and he was telling me that he'd be here in a few hours, if we were still waiting. WHAT ELSE WOULD WE BE DOING? I feel like vomiting--better to hold it in, let me burn the insides of my stomach. JESUS WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Sometimes I think I wish my parents would just call me out, give me any extra reason to help me say no because I can't seem to get myself to. Its hard knowing they believe the best in me and that's why they're screwed.

Bunny Flops

There is a soft thud as he throws himself down on the cardboard. His hazelnut eyes close slightly, and his ears relax. Now he is comfortable, ready for an afternoon nap. The black fur on his back gives way  to gray on his belly, but this is the only time I can see it. In sleep, he is a peaceful ball of soft fur and curly whiskers. When he is awake, he is a terror--made obvious by the barrier of skateboards now surrounding our sofa. If he's not out and allowed to scamper around the living room and kitchen, he will run laps around his cage, slam dancing against the walls, and kicking his bedding around. Even if he is out, he will sometimes take to chewing on our ankles or digging at our feet. In the end though, there is nothing more that I want than for him to be a happy rabbit. That may sounds silly, but I genuinely want to give him the fullest, happiest possible life a pet rabbit could have. R even built him a castle out of cardboard, with tunnels and rooms for him to sleep, so that he have his own burrow (along with a myriad of other cardboard boxes and toys for him to play with).

The afternoon sunlight wains behind the curtains, as he sleeps in his castle beneath the window and I work on the other side of the room. I'm waiting now for the dude to show up, after an awkward conversation on the phone trying to explain who I was who he knew and why I was calling. He says 30 minutes, but it could be 30 hours knowing him--at least it's in the Post.

Tomorrow we're meant to meet with R's mom at the museum and see a new exhibit, then go to the movies and perhaps have dinner. His mom is a fascinating woman, a doctor, full of life, the kind of woman you'd want to interview, but not the kind you want judging you/asking you a lot of questions. Perhaps it's my own fears of making a good impression at each meeting that I assume she is judging me because I'M judging me (social anxiety and such). She's the kind of Jewish woman who learned Krav Maga with the Black Panthers in the '70s up in the Bronx--not the kind you want to fuck with.

I'm still waiting. It's been 30 minutes now, and I'm hoping against all odds that he is on time, so I can drop one ganker rail before R gets home.

He's 30 minutes late now............................................ just shit myself so I guess the timing is good. Never had that happen before, and then all I could do was hope, sitting on the toilet, he would not ring the doorbell. It literally looked like piss in the toilet, but somehow it had come out of my colon. That doesn't make me feel very good about my health, or anything really. YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO PEE OUT OF YOUR ASS, but I guess anything is possible.

An hour has now slipped by since he said he would be here, and I feel worse than ever. My body is riled up, my nose is running, work is boring, and waiting for him to arrive is like some kind of test of endurance. It's a test that I don't have a choice but to pass.

He came and went quietly; an hour and a half late. Finally, the tension slipped from my body as the dead bolt clicked in the door frame.

Dinner time at last.

Late Night Writing

The worst part about all of this, besides the lying and the waste of money, is that I didn't start writing again until I was doing coke. There was nothing. Each day was just another spent working, living, diving deeper into depression, sleeping more and more, feeling as if my life should have ended when I tried to kill myself (I couldn't even do that right). Sure, I thought about writing, but it felt pointless--and I knew that no one should  read something I had already lost faith in before I had put pen to paper. Writing becomes a comfort when I can't trust anyone else.

I keep thinking about emailing my last writing professor, who told me I could talk to him if I ever needed someone to listen. Writing about my suicide attempt a year before left him a bit unsettled. He was actually great to talk to during office hours, as if he was just a friend or an uncle. I can't take advice from my own friends because people my age don't know shit, just like me.

So I find myself again staring down at the M.C. Escher book placed atop the stove and now covered in  a thin dusting of powder. This is all I've ever wanted: to write, and get high, and write more. Sometimes I even pretend Jim Carroll's ghost is here, and he and I talk. I started doing it when I lived alone in Paris and would write late at night about him for college. It felt like I had a mentor, even if it was just my imagination.

Soon all the coke will be gone again and I'll be left empty and cold. We're out of weed too. There will be nothing left to take solace in. Maybe a shot of whiskey? It'll make the coke last longer.... It was a gift, so it doesn't matter if you spit it out.

Second Day: FUCK

"Fuck." I sigh into the phone, "Sorry, that's because we can't get any coke. That 'fuck.'" Our conversation ends, we'll meet at the grocery store to get food. Now that we're not powered by chemicals I have to cook and eat. I hate food because I love it so fucking much. It reminds me constantly that I will never be thin without the help of drugs to surpress my appetite--never again at least.

The overhead fixture spills dirty yellow light across the bunny and I, and the rest of the living room. I try to keep positive, but all I want is cocaine. I've made up my mind. I want it now NOW NOW NOW NOWNOW.


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R's out to go get money for a gram. I need someone to hold me accountable. Someone that actually will tell me no (aka not my parents or R or myself), that will give me a reason not to. My desire for coke was stronger than my guilt over being a horrible daughter. One thing I keep thinking is, "my parents are going to sure wish they had sent me to rehab when I was 16." Now that I'm an adult, it's a lot harder to do shit about my behavior--and they're the only ones who give a shit, since I don't.

Now all there is left to do is wait, for R to return, for the dude to respond, for me to get high.

Terrible terrible Tuesdays...

-Lucy

First day: White-knuckling it

NO money. NOOOO MONEY. All the rent is gone. Gotta make it up. Part of me just wants to yell: FUCK IT. I know I can't. I know that the only money we can spend tonight is the 4 dollars we use at McDonalds on the dollar menu (two McChickens and two Double Cheeseburgers).

I've never gone through a real REAL coke withdrawal. I've heard it's not as bad as opiates, which makes me happy because that was so bad I only lasted a day before I was back on shit--vomiting cranberry juice into my trashcan with two percocets in my belly (I had just been in the hospital for all of that arm shit).

R is home and I'm happy. We're watching jokes, eating muffins from his work, smoking a bowl, and watching TV. We feel like shit, but we're positive.

Optimism or some shit--will you get us through this?

R pretends to snort a blueberry muffin, like Joaquin Pheonix snorting the weed in "I'm Still Here." We've also now summed up Brittany Murphy's career as "being on a lot of drugs and crying." I guess that's about right. You can't be on a lot of drugs, and expect that all those good feelings won't be repaid with bad ones.

- Lucy

Drug dealers can't tell time

Sip of beer, sniffle, sip of beer, check phone, sip of beer, MOTHERFUCKER, sip of beer, pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee, sip of beer, get here soon. I pet the rabbit, and R arrives with cash for when the dude arrives.

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We got the shit and we are content. My septum is fully deviated, wind is rushing from one nostril to the other.

Too fucked to type now. I will type more when I am better grounded mentally.

I never want to die.

-Lucy

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The rabbit is redecorating. He moved his tunnel of hay to the other side of his cage, digging in his bedding, frolicking in his new home. 2am is 2pm for all he cares. A little dark cloud racing in circles. That rascal.

The Dope Man Cometh

I am the couch cover. The constant seam and hole protector, and there is no more work to do. R is going to dinner with his uncle, and there is no work to do. No cocaine yet so I'm keeping myself busy until the dude hits him back. He is holding his phone, lower lip slack, staring at the screen--I'm never sure what that means. He calls him, but he doesn't pick up, so immediately begins texting him. For a moment, he is texting, stops to look himself in the mirror with a raised lip like Sid Vicious, until he is on the phone again--my mood momentarily lifts, as I think he is calling the dude back because he has texted, but his uncle it's just his uncle. I  was hopeful it was all about dope, but it was just about them meeting up on the subway--shitty imagination.

My body woke up pulsing, the summer sun radiated in, and I felt content. Content because I knew we would get more coke.

--------------

I feel asleep on the sofa. The A/C rattled in the window, and the bunny slept in his cardboard castle that R had built for him. Sleepy, so sleepy, my stomach aching from its first real meal in days, as I rolled over I noticed my phone slowly blinking. Fuck. I check it, and the dude should've been here 15 minutes ago. I fear
that, although 5 feet from the door, I have missed his arrival, and will not see him for another 6 hours and it'll be my fucking fault for sleeping.

--------------

He arrives a few hours later, we find out that he had fallen asleep too--summer naps for everyone, even my bunny buddy. I do half a line as R arrives, quick to shove the other half up my nose. UP up up and away. R follows suit, then quickly describes the 25 foot manual he did in the subway on the way back--woah bro woah righteousssssssssssssssssssssss (haha).

Now we're on the sofa, feeling Right.

God I love the summer.

Time to go celebrate tonight.
-Lucy

HYPOthetical cocaine

This could be the last cocaine we do for a few weeks--by this cocaine, I mean, what's screaming through my veins as we speak. I swear I can feel it in my arms. We're only wearing underwear and socks on our bed, smoking weed and flipping through my iPod. The lights hum brighter and darker as power surges strike through the building. I don't think the wiring has been changed since at least the 1980s,  and probably not the 1940s in the bedroom where there is only one outlet. Motherfuckers.

my eyes and boddy pulse pulse pulse with the music as i feel it more. ohhhhhhhh fuck I wish we had more money, that would be fun. If we hadn't spent half the rent already, and had to pay it late, once my next paycheck came in. I don't know if the dude is up, bu----yeah, that's a horrible idea. Sleep is more appropriate. Possibly healthier or something, haha, but when I'm not on uppers I sleep 10 to 14 hours a day due to my depression, so I like staying up.

R is tripping, I feel much better. The A/C hums on again, thank fuck for modern convenience, and it sounds like the rabbit is sleeping or at least not doing gymnastics like some nights. For his size, he makes a decent amount of racket, but its the most adorable racket you've ever seen/heard.

I'm too fucked to type.

good night. goodbye for now cocaine.
maybe.
-Lucy

THE PLOT THICKENS

Of course. Of course when we decided to get weed, from our dude who also gets us coke, we find ourselves getting a gram. The weed makes our hearts beat even faster, and the coke effects last longer. We've cut back a lot on the amount of weed we smoke, maybe getting two eighths a week, down from when we would get 3 or 4.

I feel a bit healthier, even just cutting out the coke for this half day, like my body is coming back to life. It could be because I ate breakfast as well.

Knowing that coke should be arriving in 15 minutes, I feel happy, R feels happy.

Fuck it.

Just two American Americans celebrating 4th of July!
- Luce

Soberugh

UGH. Going sober after doing drugs for weeks on end, is like taking a 14 hour flight between time zones (I've taken a few of those in my short life). It's like being sucked into a void that has no real time, no space, isolated, hurtling silently through the dark night sky. Within a plane full of people, I feel completely alone. The humming of the aircraft engines fills my ears, and I'm caught, awake and contorted into an airplane seat, waiting, forever waiting, for it to land.

I just want to get coke. I am not into being sober. We just smoked the last of our weed. I feel annoyed that my brain keeps looping: LET'S GET COKE. LET'S GET COKE. LET'S GET COKE. But I'm keeping that inside, so that we can stop this maddness.

WHY CAN'T WE BE REGULAR JUNKIES AND LET THIS SHIT FALL WHERE IT MAY?

Because our parents will know. My parents will know or his will and we will be fucked. I know if they find out we will be dragged apart, off to rehabs, and maybe never find each other again.

We've now spent a third of our rent money... I won't be able to pay it until I get paid again, next Friday, so it'll be late, but at least it won't bounce. I'd rather send in a late check, than have one bounce.

I realized that if we have kids, we'll be combining two fucked up lines, into one child. One child that will most likely be sickly, mentally ill, drug addict, but really sexy and smart. Or maybe, this child will be the one that breaks the mold, and does the exact opposite, becoming a doctor or lawyer like all of our parents wanted for us. I was wondering last night if we shouldn't have any, and just live our lives however we want for the rest of time. Then again, I'm not in a very good head space right now.

Once I discovered that I could be a high-functioning junky, that I could play good citizen, and do whatever the fuck I wanted, I never wanted a different life. I just hope that my patience lasts through the day, and that seeing R's family later goes smoothly.

Let's hope I make it to day 2,
- Lucy

P.S. If anyone is reading this, and wants to say "hey!" that'd be awesome. I'd love to know someone was reading this.

If only we owned a swiffer...

Dr. Phil blabbers on the TV, remarking that people who are good have a defined image. I addmited to R the other day that I had wanted to do drugs, mostly heroin, since I was 11 in D.A.R.E. class. My defined image since then has been smart, but on a shit ton of drugs. I know at least I'm still on a shit ton of drugs (and I did graduate university a semester early, this past December).

R doesn't want us to ever touch coke again. I understand that, but I don't feel the same. I feel like we just need to chill until we have some time to look at these past few months in retrospect, and figure out how we can still do shit without LOSING OUR SHIT ( or possibly losing our apartment). And by shit, I mean money... a lot of money. We've never had money until now, where we could actually spend it on stuff we wanted, which only adds to the bottomless pit of spending.

Tomorrow we are done for now. I probably wont' want to write, since I'll be too depressed and curled up to do any of that shit.

Wish me luck,
- Lucy

No Repentance

There is something so unrepentant about being a cokehead. At least junkies, once in a while alone, you will reflect on how you are such a piece of shit for continuing this, but cocaine leaves you empty of those feelings. Now you are simply full of one goal, nothing else occurs in my brain. I wonder if I'll OD soon, and this whole saga will come to a quick end, wrapped up in a perfect package.

All the people that get down, must get up?

Home for two days and back on the coca. While I was home I swiped a bottle of percocet, going through 29 in under a week, almost all to myself. I probably seemed fucked up, but my parents have seen me in such distressing states over the past few years that as long as I seem happy they don't take too much notice. The last time I saw them was after I went off my meds, in the midst of a horrible panic-attack-meltdown. They made everything better, and got a doctor to call in my meds for me so that I could get back on them. My mom was mad at my father, who went off his meds two months ago, which she partially blamed for me going off mine.

My nose feels as if it's been scraped with razors. I want to shoot up, but last time I gave myself a big skin pop, which took forever to go down AKA I missed the vein badly. My skills are now severely lacking, especially since I have to shoot up in my upper arm to avoid my painful scar tissue in the crease.

We haven't admitted to each other that our coke use is a problem yet. I know I'm taking my place as a classic white, middle class girl who went to NYU... perfectly described by Jacques Brel (my favorite French singer):

I can no longer use the excuse that I don't know any better. I guess I never really cared that I was fucking myself up. My arthritis already did that for me, and any attempt at keeping my body in perfect health seems like a waste of time. I just need to keep my job and stop doing this dumb shit, and maybe I can make something of myself eventually.

- Lucy

Oh the Brain Zaps!

My doctor never got back to me, so now I'm going cold turkey off of 225 mg of Effexor. This is day 3. My nerves send shocks down from the top of my skull out through my finger tips or feet, it happens whenever I turn my head or take a step. Whenever I eat, my stomach clenches a within 20 minutes, and my body empties out everything I put in. My sleep, unsurprisingly, hasn't changed from 12 to 14 hours a day, but it now makes me feel a bit better to sleep that long. My dreams are strange like normal. I feel emotionally better, like I'm doing the right thing, besides the occasional moments of deep sadness--the way you feel when you think about a loved one or pet, who is recently deceased, like there is no way that hole they have created can ever be filled. I want to get off of this shit though, and be free. It is also dangerous because antidepressants have been linked to a higher incidence of diabetes, which my family has a history of (and my father was recently diagnosed with). I think what bothers me the most is the feeling of weakness that comes with the "brain zaps" and the feeling that my eyes are kind of rattling in my skull, like I'm not in full control of them.

I guess doing cocaine and smoking weed while getting off of them is probably not recommended. Then again, I never stopped while I was on them, so stopping once off of them, seems stupid. One thing that is helping is watching dumb/comedic shows on TV, laughing and enjoying myself is making me feel a lot better.`Tonight my boyfriend (R) is taking me to the movies to see the Great Gatsby and to dinner. I'm so excited! We haven't been to the movies in months, and the Great Gatsby looks great. I'm not so sure how 3-D is going to effect me, but hopefully it won't fuck with me too much. I'm not sure what kind of food we should get, I've been really feeling Italian lately, but I'd be down for anything besides Mexican or Indian (my stomach already has enough to deal with).

I figure taking this day by day and dealing with the withdrawal effects will be so worth it in the end, that I might as well make the best of it and try to be positive.

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekends!
- Lucy

If you're a junky and you know it, clap your....

I'm detoxing off of effexor and cocaine. Effexor is my anti-depressant. I've decided that I might as well not take it if I'm fucking myself up on drugs all the time anyway. I keep getting these nerve shocks in my brain, they feel as if someone has shot electricity through my forehead. Could also be that I beat myself in the head multiple times last night.

Yeah, I wasn't taking not doing coke well. 2nd day without it, and I've finally calmed down.

Only a fucking week and a half straight on that shit, and being away from it really makes me want to blow my brains out. That's a bad sign, or that's a good drug, depending on how you look at it. R doesn't want to believe that I'm like this, that taking me away from a drug could cause this. He blames himself, and tells me I couldn't do drugs without him. But if he didn't realize by  now, if he didn't realize when I told him about my monumental pill habit in high school, if he didn't realize it when he did drugs with me, then I don't know why he'd realize now.

It makes me feel worse when he blames himself. It also makes me mad. First, I don't want anyone to feel bad for the mistakes I've made because they are MY mistakes. It also denies me any individuality or power, as if I was so stupid I would follow him off the cliff.

We can't afford to stay high forever and pay rent. But I wish we could. Maybe one day.

Stay safe
- Lucy

Fuck logic...

Want to get fucked up all of the time, all of the time, ALL OF THE TIME.

We've probably spent 1,000 bucks on coke. A week long binge between the two of us and his tax refund has come to a close. But even though we're trying to stop (so that we can see our mother's for mother's day without being tweaked out) I want more. I am getting that feeling that I used to when I would run out of oxy. That sinking feeling coupled with an unreasonable need. Unreasonable because JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WE SPENT A GRAND ON GRAMS. It's our first big big big drug-money splurge. I'm working an over time week this week so we're not too concerned. And he's getting another refund check, and there is still more left of his refund.

Right now I don't give a fuck, I just want coke. I don't care that it's a horrible idea or that it will drain our bank accounts or that it'll ruin our lives or that I know I will read this one day and regret it, I just fucking want another gram.

It's good I don't have the dealers number. Or I'd have spent the money he gave me for a part of the rent. I could get 4 grams. More than enough for the weekend. He doesn't realize that I'm junky scum and when I'm plied with drugs, the scummier parts float to the surface. I fall back on being manipulative, deceitful, and greedy. The only saving grace is that I'm smart enough to have a plan to fix it. I don't think I could spend the money, but right now, if I could, I wouldddd. I guess that I mean I could.

I'm working a 50 hour week right now, which means I get over time, which means a lot of extra cash, as well as a job from my dad. Together I should have about an extra paycheck worths which is great. Hopefully I can save it... or spend it on coke.

Right now both sound good.

- Lucy

Fear in the Big Bad City

I can't believe the explosions in Boston. Lately it feels like the entire world is going insane, as if all the crazies have decided that the apocalypse isn't going to happen without their hand in it. At 22, I don't think I'd ever have expected to see so many senseless acts of mass murder in this country. It makes me want to get obliterated. Not that it'll change anything.

Why would anyone do this?

What point could possibly solved by blowing people up?

It makes me want to say fuck it, and drink until the floor comes up to greet me. There are no drugs in the house. Rob wants shrooms, and I want coke, but there isn't enough money for either really, but there's alcohol and some chemicals and maybe some combination of that will make it all okay and I won't have to wonder away anymore hours tonight.

Good night, I hope your friends and family are safe!
- Lucy

Addendum:
One of these nights where I'm refusing to sleep. I guess it makes me feel better. As if staying up I'll figure out what could've caused it, or how someone could arrive at that point. But even now thinking about it, I realize I probably don't have that capacity. So I'm doing meaningless work, drinking monster, trying to soothe myself with Iggy Pop and the pantomimes of a silent MSNBC news anchor. These moments make me feel so empty. The fact that no amount of good deeds can change that bad people or mentally ill people get a horrible plan into their heads and act is a scary truth. It seems to be a growing theme over the past year, and the incidents are only getting more frequent. It's not so much that I'm afraid that I'll get killed, because I'm fairly at peace with death (it is the one inevitable part of life), but the deep sense of sadness for those who are killed and their families. It makes me want to throw a tantrum and curse the ground because it is so senseless.

I never learned how to understand tragedies. No one ever thinks to teach you that.

You can run, but you'll just die tired.

I don't know if we're running away or towards speed. It's always hanging in the back of our minds, even when we have none. We usually get about enough for a week binge, a long week, ending in a slow depression--our minds and bodies shot. We need to find a new doctor to keep it up, as his old one was not cutting it for his bipolar. As much as we love the amphetamine prescribed to him, he needs lithium to keep his bipolar in check. Without medication, he is basically sent into an emotional hell. Not that we help it with our "lifestyle" or whatever, but what can I say.

He keeps asking me about shooting him up with coke. I keep telling him maybe. The truth might be that I would, but what if that is the beginning of something horrible. Something that I won't be able to control, and it will be my fault, my gift to him. The gift I don't want to give. Worse, it could be immediate death. Those two thoughts dance around the question whenever he asks it. If neither of those things were a possibility, I wouldn't give a shit. If I didn't love him, I wouldn't care at all. But we are our own family, with our pet rabbit and our small apartment. Our tiny life. I don't want it to end. Or get worse.

It's okay right now, just how I like it. It'll always be precarious, but I can deal with that.

At least, I can right now.
- Lucy

Cocaine is like your birthday...

My birthday just passed, on the heals of a week long speed binge. We slept a bit, so it wasn't as psychotic as that sounds. It never seems psychotic anymore, anyway. It was not a good or a bad birthday, but a birthday none the less. 22 years. 6 years since a birthday passed sober. 6 years ago, when I loved the needle and it loved me, and we loved percocets. At 16, I deified myself and worshipped at my own alter, thinking I was somehow the exception to the rule.

This year, I waited for my boyfriend to return from a job at a baking factory, covered in grease, feeling guilty for "ruining" my birthday. It was okay. I wasn't phased at all. There were 60 more mgs for Sunday, when we would get back from my parents' home. No point being tweaked out in front of the parents, I'd rather be depressed, at least that would be excusable. We'd be fine, eat some good food, and play with the kitten--it'd all be fine.

Today, a week later exactly, doing bumps of cocaine as I work from home, and I realized this is how a birthday should feel--like a good coke high. It won't last long, but it'll feel good and right. That's why I'm writing again. I missed it, and this has got me back thinking about it.

BTW, I graduated college, early, with a 3.45, in case you were curious about why I stopped writing, I was studying.

Later, but sooner than a few years,
- Lucy