AUGUST 8TH; 2010: BEFORE IT ALL BEGAN AND ENDED 

I woke up dead; or at least it felt like it.

Midmorning, could be early noon, too early for what I was about to do, at least in polite society at any time of the day.

I took a few pills I got from someone, maybe Sandy, or even Sid.  I didn’t remember, didn’t really matter, I didn’t even know what the pills were, just some random mix of colors and style thrown together for some kind of party inside my head; to break away that dust of reality that laid there.

I felt the kick of them soon enough though.  Heart sped up, muscles tightened.  The room expanded and then collapsed on itself, exploding, in a cosmic release of energy, the beginning and the end of all at the same time.

I was a drug addict.  I was a loser of the highest caliber but a winner in the eyes of those who didn’t know; and a train wreck in the running to those who did.

Cheap neon signs forever blinking in my mind as girls on speed or something danced all night in their leather dresses on the dance floor; oblivious to life around them at the moment.

No one in my other life, that unreality dream world of offices and managers, knew of the reality of my life outside the suit and tie; the man in the bathroom stall at some club with a needle in one hand while the other tapped the vein to give me my dose of shock and awe.

Sometime later, midnight, maybe later, we would jump, weighted down, into the deep end of a pool of a friend of a friend.   Some would release soon after hitting the water; floating lovingly on the top, oblivious to the things happening below them.   Others, like me, would go to the bottom and, if breathing hadn’t been a requirement for life, would have stayed there forever or until we’d drown, whichever came first.

I don’t want to be; I just am.  I drink the last swallow of booze; 2 in the morning.  I don’t feel like living but I don’t want to die.

What the hell happened?  I was driving down the road; head held high, eyes on the prize; then the next thing I knew I was on the side bleeding, almost dead, the good life ended, the dream passed me by.

I am a dreamer, a liar to myself, looking in the mirror, calling out my lies as I repeat them to myself.

I’m not a poet, not a writer, just a person who writes with the dust found by the side of the road or blood from the cuts on my hands on some piece of paper blown by and captured by the stones there.

When I was young, I could be anything I wanted to be; at least that’s what I was told.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"  the question came from a teacher; Miss Jean; in the third grade.  We all wrote down things on our ruled notebook paper. 

I wanted to be an astronaut or a rock star.

Or both.

Then something happened, I’m not sure what, maybe I grew up or the spirit died; torn apart by the world, myself or a combination of both.

Nobody ever goes out in pursuit of being an addict, it just seems to happen.  It starts out innocently; like candy; it can't hurt you, it feels good actually, makes the world seem like a better place. 

Sometime, sooner or later, the candy isn't candy anymore, it's your best friend and your worse enemy.   You like it, a lot, more than anything.  And hate it just as much. 

You hide your new lover from your "good and proper" friends, your family, the job. 

They won't find out, you tell yourself, how could they?

You hide it so well; at least you think so. 

At some moment deemed appropiate by someone or something, the stage curtains open up and reveals to the world everything.  All those outsiders of this hidden life are shown your ugly truth.

Where the hell am I in this scheme of things called life? 

What am I doing here?

I don’t know. 

Questions pondered while I count the change to buy another hit of reality; to perhaps to dream of this thing called life.