Bliss

Those days were bliss. I look back on them fondly, debauched as they were. This was a time before the world had sunk her fangs into us. Before responsibility. Before dismay. Everything was pure. Even the heartbreaks and lies and thievery. We just wanted to have fun. We weren’t worried about death nor did we see any end in sight. We were children. We just wanted to have fun, We made mistakes. We made stupid choices. We were addicted…but it was pure. We were pure. I remember cruising through the back roads of east Texas twisted and fucked up and completely oblivious to the sobering reality that was just around the corner for us. I miss it. I miss the ignorance. I miss looking up at the stars through blurry eyes and hoping for something more. I miss being in love. I miss the chaos. It’s all gone now. There’s no more time for child’s play. The world is…cold. Cold and uncaring. There are no stars in my eyes anymore. I don’t know where I’m going. I guess in truth I never knew but at least back then it felt like I was going somewhere. Now all I see is the abyss and it fills me with terror and dread. I am afraid of the dark. I feel it all around me and I can’t help but think about my on mortality. Was it all a waste? Or did those little fleeting moments of bliss and happiness have meaning? If I could go back in time would I change anything? Or would I leave it all as it always was? I’m so afraid and so very tired. I don’t know how much fight I have left in me. I’m not that kid anymore. I don’t know who I am. I wish I could just once more lay on the grass and look up at the starry night sky with those eyes I once had. I can’t see anything with these new eyes. I no longer look up. I just crave sedation. My anesthesia. I want to forget but I’m scared I’ll forget those beautiful moments that made my life worth living. That time we laid under the stars and told each other our deepest secrets. The two of us beneath the eternal crystal. What happened to me? Why am I still here? Why did one of my dearest friends, a beautiful person, have to die while I remain here chained to myself. It should have been me. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I squandered it all. I’m sorry I gave in and made myself a slave. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry I turned my back on all my friends and loved ones. Now I’m alone and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know.

I feel it in my dreams. Something beneath the surface buried deep below my pain and regret. I crave bliss. I crave..

Dark Days: The Early Years (Chapter 1)

I started young. Crystal meth sunk its teeth in me at the age of fifteen. Not even a year later I was shooting up and became known as the high school needle junkie. This was fine by me. Pretty much all of my friends were burnouts and those who weren’t seemed to be attracted to me because of my eccentricity. I always got laughs when I would show up to school clearly spun out of my mind on meth. It didn’t take long for the sleep deprivation and self induced undernourishment to start taking its toll on me though. I became jittery and fiendish and even some of my burnout friends were starting to get turned off by what they were seeing. The novelty factor had it seemed worn off. I loved meth and didn’t want to quit so I started seeking out Xanax and pain pills to take the edge off and give me some much some much needed peace from the paranoia and anxiety. This seemed to work for awhile but the downside was I now had multiple addictions to maintain. This wasn’t too terribly difficult for me. I lived with my grandparents and my grandfather had a highly successful landscaping empire, so money was always easy to come by. Sometimes I would work for my grandfathers service and earn money the right way but when that wasn’t enough I was able to do some sneaking around and find his various stash socks and empty coffee cans that were literally overflowing with hundreds, fifties, and twenties. On the weekends I would go hang out at my best friend Cody’s house and we would party. His parents were fine with us drinking and smoking pot and they even threw these huge parties where we could all get wasted. Hanging out with Cody’s family was in stark contrast to my own home life. My grandparents were devout Christians and partying and drinking were strictly out of the question. As cool as Cody’s family were they couldn’t find out about the meth and harder stuff we were doing but it was easy enough to keep that under wraps thanks to all the chaos and virtually nonstop partying at their place. I miss those days when the drugs really hadn’t started to rob me of everything. Back when it all fun and games. I miss riding with Cody in his blue pickup truck at two or three in the morning totally ripped as we navigated the quiet back roads of Cut N’ Shoot Texas looking for parties or mushrooms to pick. I wanted to take all the drugs. I was still in my experimental phase and I experimented on everything I could get my hands on. Uppers like coke and meth were definitely my faves but downers and painkillers were slowly creeping into my life to steal that title from the uppers. When I first tried Oxycontin I knew right away that I had found something special. I loved, loved, LOVED the way that shit made me feel so I started seeking out other strong opiates like Methadone

One day after being up for three or four days on meth I took a Xanax and stumbled into my grandparents horse and llama field and decided I wanted to eat some mushrooms. I thought I had read somewhere that mushrooms grown in horse shit could be psychedelic so I found a patty and pulled up a huge mushroom and took what I thought was a small bite. Just to test it. Soon after that my friend Samantha called me and asked me if I wanted to go swimming in the lake with her and her uncle Steve. I loved Steve. He was an old hippie from the Woodstock era and I loved getting stoned with him and talking about various conspiracy theories we had and our belief in aliens, So I said I would love to go swimming so Samantha and Steve came and picked me up and we went to the lake. I was fine the whole ride there and even after I got in the water. I swam out a ways and that’s when my whole world flipped sideways and I immediately started to feel like complete shit. I yelled over to Steve and Samantha on the shore that something was wrong and somehow managed to swim back to shore even though my left side was starting to fail me. I told Steve I had eaten a bad mushroom and I needed to get home so my grandparents could call an ambulance so he drove me home with me puking out of the window all the way home and dropped me off at my grandparents, I ran inside my house and straight to the bathroom where I sat on the toilet and started spewing from both ends uncontrollably. My grandmother called EMS after I crawled into bed and when they showed up they looked me over and I asked me what happened. After I told him the EMS guy looked at my grandmother and told her I was really sick but that I was gonna be fine and there was no need for me to go to the emergency room and then he left. After he was gone a Montgomery County Sheriff appeared in the doorway and looked at me with a mix of pity and disappointment. “You ever gonna do that again?” he asked me with his arms crossed. “NOOO,” I wailed as I felt my guts twisting and turning and preparing to betray me again. The sheriff nodded and walked back down the hallway. ‘Good luck!” He called behind him.

I spent the next few days in bed puking and shitting myself while my poor grandmother continued to rotate my sheets and wash the soiled ones. Finally after and few days I started to feel better and my grandmother showed me what she had found in the little building they gave me for a room so I could have my own place. To my horror I saw she was holding a plastic baggie filled with my syringes, pipes, and cookers. I was caught red handed. My grandmother, grandfather, and me all got into a huge argument which ended with me leaving to go stay with Steve and his wife Sandra. They had really taken a liking to me since I hung out with them and Samantha all the time. We would get stoned and drunk and talk about all kinds of crazy shit and eventually Steve told me I was welcome to move in with them if I ever needed to. So that day after the confrontation with my grandparents I packed some things and moved in with Steve and Sandra.

Cleaning My Plate

Mouth open wide to start another day. I wonder what they’ll be feeding me today. A plate of shit? A plate of pills? A plate of all elusive cheapened thrills.

I scarf it down, put on my crown, walk the town. Seems so easy, seems so empty, seems so happy, seems so freely!

Is there another way? Is there something I can do to be less like you? Running from the day. Running far from you!

She told me once, I’d never get away. That this is all she knows. Only what I’ve shown. All my chances blown. My anger it grows, my anger it shows.

My mouth opens again to suck it all in. I don’t care what they shove inside of my skin. A plate of apathy, a plate of candy, a plate of unrelenting insanity.

I clean my plate, inhaling the hate, seeking my fate. Seems so dated, seems so hated, seems so fucking outdated!

Is this all that there is? Have I only temptations to insist to resist? Running far away. Running away to play!

She told me once, I’d never ever change. Well just look at me now! I’ll bet you’re wondering how! I’m getting into the flow! So watch me go, watch me go!

Diamond Whore

She empties baggies of diamonds all over her soul. They seep inside of her skin, she will never grow old. Her needlepoint stitching with fingers so cold. She’s a good girl, does exactly what she’s told. An effigy to burn is that which she molds. A philosopher genius, turning filth into gold.

She’s broken, at least that’s what they say. She’s empty, at least just for today. She’s happy, today she found a way. She opens doors that should have been locked. and she’s abandoning the very boat she herself rocked.

She always said she wanted more but she never ever wanted to be a whore. She’s swimming for the shore! She’s crawling on the floor! She makes one final desperate plea! She’s crawling on her bloody knees, and worshiping the disease.

She empties all that’s left of her shattered soul. Pieces fall to the floor, in chunks of fools gold. The marks on her skin tell a story so old. She’s a lost girl, doesn’t care if she’s found. Her effigy buried deep beneath the ground. Inspiring to some, words without a sound.

So long ago, I was just a boy who wanted more. Now these days, I’m something more. Something pure. Something tainted. Something twisted. Something broken. Something stolen. Something whole. Something empty. Someone better. Someone worse. Someone without a reason to be. Someone without a reason to see. Someone without a reason. Someone without a reason to be anything at all. Now these days I’m just anyone at all.