Snow In-doors

We sat silent in the movie theaters on Valentine's Day as "The Wolf of Wall Street" played out across the screen. I  thought it looked like a smaller theater, I imagined it was chosen as the projection room since it had been playing for quite a while now. All of the blow being poured into their noses and across any hard surface to rest for a few seconds before disappearing once again. I couldn't help being drawn back in for one more night of passion and blow.


It took 2 days of ruminating on whether or not to give into these temptations before we called our friend. We had all the suppliea given to me by the needle exchange and although I opted out of looking for my own veins (which always hide and require great patience) and instead helped R hit his own. After not filtering last time which lead to us vomiting and shitting our guts out, he prepped everything thoroughly. I watched jealously as he began to line up the spike on his arm. His hands shook as I repeatedly told him to lower the angle of the needle, until I could not watch and suggested I do it for him. He didnt mind the help, as I easily slipped it in on the outside of his left arm, I registered blood and pushed down the plunger. It was so easy that I honestly felt a small amount of jealousy. It dissolved as I cut myself a fat line and railed it. Pleasure rushed through my body, and eventually turned into want, which pushed me to repeat the process over until it was gone and my nose was raw.

Tea helped me drift off into a warm satisfied sleep.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman is Dead and so is my Grandmother

My grandmother passed away a week and a half ago. I knew it was coming, but only for a few days before she finally "left" as she called it, her fingers fluttering upwards off the hospital bed a few days before. I had been suffering a virulent lung infection which kept me from spending as much time with her as I would have. She had t cell lymphoma, and her blood count was at it's lowest ever. But she had all her hair--one of her final joys. We brought her home to die, and she passed without pain in her sleep.

I am still in disbelief.

I realized as I thumbed through her wedding album, and loose pictures, that my face was so similar to hers it was eerie. Being an only child, I have always longed to see myself within my parents faces, but never found a true similarity that made me feel complete. However, pictures of her youthful, rosy cheeks and creamy white skin like mine only made me miss her more. I remembered visiting the library with her as a child; it was one of our favorite places to go together and she would read me stories or as I got older I would read the books myself. Those mystical transporters that lined the dark shelves of the children's wing, waiting for me to pick them up and open them. Then running my fingers across the books that lined their tiny tv room, including Death of a Salesman and some John Le Carre novels to the left of my preferred chair. Their house was the beginning of my great love affair with reading and finally writing.

While I stayed at my parents house my blood-oxygen level dropped to 89%, which is 10% less than it should be for a 22 year old who doesn't smoke or have asthma. It was terrifying and confusing, as I waited for 9 hours in the ER to be discharged without anyone really knowing what was to blame besides a possible viral lung infection. As my breathing got better, I began to feel stronger, more like myself. Then I had a horrible bought of urinary retention which lasted for 24 hours and ultimately ended in my bladder being filled with a catheter for five days. I can finally piss on my own, after using some laxatives to help my constipation due to kratom extracts. I used them to keep my arthritis pain at bay... as well as keeping me high. We both know it'd be a lie for me to say it was not for the high.

At least I'm back in Queens, where I can make myself tea far from the watchful eyes of my parents.I gave my mother some kratom when she pulled a muscle in her chest shoveling. It "took the edge off" she said, so I felt happy to help in some way, even if what I gave her she would most likely frown upon. I doubt she realized based on the feeling that it was an opiate because she didn't seem bothered by seeing me take it. I don't know, perhaps it was a small reprieve.

Tonight, our friends are coming over to watch our favorite show collectively: "Workaholics". How ironic that none of us work anymore having both been laid off. They may be getting a ride down to NOLA on Friday, to live on as street punks and train hoppers. It makes me nervous that I'll never see them again, but I hope not.

All that can be done is to wait and see.
Lucy

Long Overdue Post

So much has happened since I last posted that I don't know where to begin... but I'll try and fill everything in as best as I can:

The week before Christmas I was hospitalized voluntarily to be put on suicide watch. I realized that I was feeling very suicidal and did not want to kill myself (because I know that life is precious even if it feels hopeless sometimes). It was the first time I've been in a psych ward or in some way been taken out of the rat race to relax that actually helped. I felt much calmer and much more positive upon leaving and heading into the holidays.

R and I spent our holiday in Texas seeing my mother's side of the family. This was positive in many ways but brought up a lot of stuff for both of us. I ruminated on the decisions I'd made that had taken me to this point, as well as my parents' (especially father's) disregard for my poor life choices. R compared his own family to mine it seemed and felt the loneliness of being rejected by his family yet them still expecting him to accept them and care about them. We are at very different points in this path, but we both are trying to work it all out as best we can. Of course, I drowned my sorrows in hydrocodone syrup and pills of all sorts, while he did his speed and pulled on his e-cig day after day. We did our best to get through the highs and lows together. Overall I enjoyed my time there, especially reconnecting with a cousin who hadn't acknoledged my presence in years (verging on a decade it seems like), but now that she is off of heroin (didn't know she was on it) she was really warm and actually really cool to talk to. It's sad that she went through something like that for us to reconnect, but at least she's on suboxone now. I've been dwelling on this reconnection a lot, and I'm sure it will come up again later in my musings.

For New Year's Eve, R and I dropped two and a half tabs each which was glorious. However, our original plan to go to see our friend's play with our other friends who were doing sound turned out to be unsettling for R--as well as being in the backseat for the scariest ride of my life (and the driver was sober). The house we entered to go to the show was full of people and strobe lights and smoke, dudes with dreads and others with pristene baseball hats turned to the side came at us from all angles, and others called out offering drugs for free or for sale. I was mesmerized by everything around us, and felt as if I was inside some skit from 90s SNL, while R began to quietly freak out beside me. I had been convinced that if either of us were to freak out, it'd be me considering the events of the past few weeks. Luckily, two of our friends showed up to save the day, and picked us up before the music started, returning us to our car. After some sobering up (and seeing a neighbor watching us through his window), we headed back to Queens for a quiet night in, tripping in the serenity of our apartment--we were even able to see the fireworks from our window.

Now that life is mostly back to normal I've been trying to get our apartment cleaned up and get myself back on course. Okay, so the apartment cleaning has not been going well and is beginning to bare down on me now that there is no room in the sink left for dishes. That's barely the tip of the iceberg of chores/responsibilities I need to take care of but have not started dealing with. I know it's bad, but I have been taking my meds daily and talking to my therapist which is in my parents'/doctors' eyes the most important thing (aka taking care of my mental health). I don't know how well I'm doing at that but at least I'm doing something.

The tea is kicking and the temperature is so low (-8 when I went outside at 5am for breakfast, now it's 4 degrees at 9:45am) even in my apartment that I can't deny myself the joy of crawling back under the covers. I will write more later on today.

-Lucy

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.

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

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