there was this one time i got suckered

he told me he needed support, that’s me

it is just what i do-past/present/future

he duped me into attending a play

a play where everyone has to participate

like one of those mystery “who done it” parties

we walk into a room where the smoke was so thick

i could hear the apologies of those who had

tripped over the guy in front of him-0 visibility

believe it or not there was an order of operations

he seemed invisible, that is why i was there,

but this allowed us to get the coffee and fix it up

walking through the narrow space between

chairs and the wall, most of it an obstacle

a course to avoid the knees and feet

and when that wasn’t possible one must bow head

ask 7 times for forgiveness then walk away

he started telling the ins and outs of the deal

“yeah, you can’t sit down there.  reserved.”

“what? reserved for who? kinda bullshit!

who doesn’t have to bumble through

all this smoke!  shit dude!  i don’t think i

will need a cigarette for a week after this.

how long is it?” “an hour” fuck!

“i always leave early.  that is why my sponsor

told me to bring you to help keep me calm”

thanks random stranger who i have never met

what a wonderful way to spend my nap-time

my eyes adjusted to the fog of carbon monoxide

i looked around at the slowly closing surroundings

the actors ready, on the edge of their seats

they have rehearsed this in the mirror

for at least 3 weeks and 5 days, their time

that one guy-an alcoholic-starts saying words

they are words completely incomprehensible

babbling brook of bullshit backwash

as he talks i drown out and look

it’s a room full of disaster of every sort

i could peg them all-i have been them all

that girl: meth; the fella in the corner: drinker-still nips

over there that woman with hair so big you can see

straight through to the people behind her: baffling,

no whiskey, no coke, no meth, definitely not a junkie, hmmm?

the social reject finding a home among the demented

many holding papers gifted to them by a judge or

foster care agent, biding time rolling;unrolling they just need it signed

three of them are homeless and beneath the smell of hunger

and sweat is the taste of crack in tickling the back of the throat

the three just trying to get coffee and out of the cold agree with everything.

the guru of the drunks and druggies coulda said he needed to piss

and their heads would bob in approval.  it was what you were supposed

to do and not draw attention to yourself or it’s back on the street w you!

they, the three comrades of life, don’t stare like the rest

they don’t give a damn who’s there and who’s not.

they came for the coffee, the warmth and maybe a smoke.

i looked down at the hands attached to thumbs twiddling without knowledge

eyes and whispers bombard the aura, a disturbance in the force

“guess that addiction” the name of the game, they fill the reserved seats

the young cool hip jazzie kids who grew up on pot and x, very chic

a few of the fiends dancing in their seats awaiting their turn to speak

sorely disappointed when overlooked, watching the silence trap them

after the hull-a-ba-loo and the prayer and the forced hand holding-ugh

comes the good part, the q&a, the smell of new meat and fresh blood

lures them all in like a man in a desert falling in a lake, it’s been so long

some just come to say hello, that’s decent, that’s expected, no biggie

others more sinister saunter over leaving a trail of slime in their wake

tattoos and piercings eyes intensely peering into the heart of me

it makes me sick the site of a predator camouflaged to devour

the only exit is to swim the cool kid territory, less of two evils

hands grab me, turned me around, questions hurled like

stones hitting the whore buried to her waste in the sand

there is no evasion, no escape, they got me by the short and curlys

“i have never seen you hear before.” the voice like velvet, should be alluring

sorry charlie i have played the game i invented that invitation and patented it

“yeah, no this isn’t my scene.  i just came to support my husband.”

giving him the once over like he had never been there before, bitch

“are you ok?  you look a little sick.  need a glass of water?”

the surroundings and perked ears were a good indication to lie

i needed to lie good and fast, exposing the truth not and option

“i just have a bit of a cold, but it’s all good. and the smoke is so thick!”

more words, more nodding, all the while looking for the door.  it’s there

hidden behind the crowd and smoke like a magic trick in the dark

she leaned in and whispered, it’s just between she and i, don’t worry

there is no way she would ever tell them-those behind her whiskers at alert

ready to pick up any vibration in a 20 mile radius but honed in on me

“i think you are really here because you need help.  it wasn’t just about him.

this is about you.  your sweating, shaking and stance give it away.”

she leaned in even closer putting her nose against my skin

breathing deeply pulling part of me into her body

“not to mention you smell of morphine and oxycotin.

i think you are here to get help.  i can help you.  think of

your kids, think of him.  is it fair to them that you are a JUNKIE?”

my eyes pop open, the hair standing on end, about to vomit

or shit my pants or both simultaneously.  i underestimated her

or i was arrogantly overestimating my own abilities, it didn’t matter

either way i was exposed, open, fucked and about to explode.

pushing the lady with the big hair out of the way, slamming the door

in one movement grabbing the trash can, light on, pants down and erupting

mt vesuvius in all directions leaving no life moving only encapsulated in ruin

yeah i needed to get home, too long without happiness and these people,

something about them all reminded me of jim jones handing out kool aid

she, the leader of the socs, full of intellect and big blue eyes and arrogance

“being sick sucks, huh?  i have been there!  i got clean when i was 15.”

“yeah ok.  that’s great.  good deal.  but i am sick and i need to get home”

“dope sick!  how much are you taking a day?” her mouth salivating w memories

“i take medicine.  that is all.  i have a physical disability.  no for real i am sick.”

“hun (omg! former ihop waitress sporting a greatful dead shirt) we were all sick!

we understand.  we have all been where you are!  this is where you come for help.

do you really want to be a JUNKIE forever?  don’t they deserve more?  don’t you?”

bad dye job alchie in the crowd of the anointed lords of the sobriety circles

i look back and i wonder how long it took to master the honeyed voice and soothing smile

years, hell decades, of breathy whispers and intoxicating words, promising hope

in a life where hope came at a price, the air becoming a warm blanket and a nod

“look.  i mean this is all great and good and cool, but i need to get the hell outta here!

good luck to you and your’s but i need to go home.  i’m sick and unless you want

to be cleaning my shit up off the floor you will get outta my way and i can walk out”

“i understand.  you aren’t ready.  it takes time.  here’s my number, give me a call

if you ever get tired of being dope sick and crazy or when your family means enough!”

a crushing blow to the core, no protection from the trojan horse at my heels.  damn!

i reached the door that was so heavy it seemed to be made of iron and the bones of drunks

looking back i saw cool and the gang smiling sweetly at me, psychically reminding me i now

have a place to turn, i can get clean, and if i don’t i am sentencing my beloveds to hell.

i puked again before i was able to heave the door open, shaking, sweating but without sorrow

i mean i told them i needed to go, had they taken it seriously i coulda been dosed out by then

avoiding the mess i had just ejected onto their not so clean floor, the door finally pried loose

i was out, slammed the door, looking at him pissed “you knew!  you knew that was what would happen”

“i am really scared.  i think you need some help.  it’s all outta control.  it’s not you anymore.”

“fuck off!  i am sick.  i have a script.  i am not some street junkie digging through trash!”

“it doesn’t matter.  you have a script, but where does it say to break the morphine down and take

it all in one big dose?  it says do not crush.  you are outta control.  you gotta do something!”

“fuck off!  you smoked blood shots!  you can’t say shit to me about this!  it’s prescribed and cool!”

“i did what i did, that doesn’t have anything to do with you or what is happening today.  you are dying!”

passing the gates to our housing unit, the ants in my pants began to dance, knowing the fix

sprinting into the house, ready to eat through the lock on the safe box, finally some relief

i was so sick so i deserved a bit extra, two morphine and a beautiful oxycotin the blanket of sunshine

you have to crush the morphine, they were pawning off the time released dope on me,some beads

tried to run away, to pop across the room looking for the exit sign, they were never fast enough

i was the champion hunter of all things opiate related, first class quality junkie ready to fix up

sweet little ball of heaven, there was never hope for escape, crushing it between my teeth, sorry

drifting in and out, scratching and nodding, becoming the embodiment of the gods of olympus

turn on the talking box, watching fairy tales in bits and pieces, too far gone to know when to laugh

so following the lead of those around me, smiling and laughing as a leaned back eyes closed.

floating down the river of tranquility, suddenly his voice grabbed me in attempts to push me under

“look at you!  do you think this is ok?  you’re about to burn the house down!  look at your boys!”

i peeled one eye open, cursing him mentally for shaking my foundations, stealing my love

i saw the backs of their head:painted with red hair, one brown, and the other golden

biggest to smallest, watching the moving picture box, oblivious to me and my nap

“what are you talking about, asshole?  they are watching tv!  they are fine!  leave me alone!”

i was wrong. watching out of the corners of their eyes, hearing the scratching

the big one with the painted red hair walked up, chest out full of bravery and valor

i loved him, he was one of the four clean and pure in a world of filth and hate

“momma, i think you need some help.  you can’t even talk right.  your arm is bleeding”

looking down my eyes focusing on the red dripping from the cut in the arm they said was mine

i laughed, cackling like a witch with a baby in the cauldron cooking the elixir of youth

looking around i noticed this didn’t seem to amuse anyone else, the small one crying

man!  i opened my mouth in protest but the sound fell flat, no excuse was true enough

it was decided, the kick would begin the next day, but until then let me be. more crushing

the next day phone call to el’ jefe hipster for help, what do i do?  i got sick after 3 hours.

the honeyed voice didn’t sound as swooning as the day before in the smokey room

maybe it was my lack of sickness at that point or maybe her fan base was absent

who knows, who cares, it was pretty irrelevant at the time, just needed answers

to kick opiates is to put your life on the line, not just the sick and the pain which is enough

making thesane person run into the police station naked cazy, but the seizures and cardiac issues

every junkie knows this,  after a while you stop feeling high and concede to just run from withdraw

the voice on the other end didn’t ooze support it danced the fence of annoyance and boredom

“i don’t know what to do!  i am getting sick!  really sick!  what am i supposed to do?  i think i am dying!”

“(sigh of exasperation and disgust) just stop stay hydrated. your going to get sick.  it’s what happens”

“but i don’t think this is normal.  really i think i am in trouble.  i think i am having seizures!”

“then i guess you should go to the hospital.  i am in the middle of something right now. call 911.”

hang up, call mom, i could hear the door slam and steps beating against stairs and the door flying open

“o my god!  are you ok?  what is going on?  where is everyone?  what is happening?  did you overdose?”

real fear resonated from her mouth for the second time in my life, it must be shocking to see the person

you gave birth to laying on the floor shaking, sweat flying, with vomit and froth covering their face. a junkie life

fragmented sounds, weaving into words conveying the dire situation as if it weren’t obvious to any onlooker

carried to the car, carried into the hospital, noise, liquids spewing from ever orifice available, drenched in sweat

more seizures, painful and burning after but during it was a break from the pain of my bones smashing apart

she tried her best to explain.  i could catch little pieces.  she was wrong but my mouth was busy expelling bile

the blood pressure and heart rate the shaking sickness and aroma of systems long dead reanimated and releasing

telltale signs of a junkie with no dope.  they see it all the time.  course of action-shot of morphine then out

“look you don’t have to be so dramatic about it.  you can have your morphine, and a meal.” mr phd rolled his eyes

just another nasty junkie, a loser in the card game of smack worthless and demented.  there is nothing more vile

than when these show up making a scene and getting everything filthy with their sick, piss and shit.

refusing to let the muscles seizing again take control, fighting to regain my mouth, my words

“fuck your morphine!  i have morphine!  i am trying to kick dick!  give me the shot and i am coming

back to visit you dead tonight!  what time do you get off of work?  don’t want you to miss it!  there

is about 4000 mg of morphine and 2400 mg of oxycotin sitting at my house right now waiting to be smashed

and ingested.  it calls to me.  you give me that shot and i go home and have a party!  what’s up doc?”

what an unusual dope fiend this is writhing on our gurney.  trying to get off of opiates.  that doesn’t happen

his face said it all.  his eyes were screaming LIAR. o well what did he care, he still got the paycheck.

a quick call to the gp, they were friends, hitting the golf balls around while drinking dirty martini’s

a decision made, along with an invitation to lunch, to start a round of meds, send it/me upstairs

the strung out ones always paid, then they would do this insanity throwing a wrench into the works

was dealing with trash like the one covered in excrement worth it?  a mil a year worth it.

and the mess, that is what nurses and orderlies are for.  he just needed to write the order

an iv, something, valium? and a clonidine for blood pressure and it was night night birdie

the warmth of my comfy blanket brought me out of my dreamless sleep, a washing of fear

tearing at the tubes a scream trying to escape from my mouth but blocked hitting a barrier

huge tears streaming down my face, stinging my cheeks, feral and cornered lied, deceived

there he sat, head in hands, rubbing his temples.  the strong one turned into a succubus

a writhing hating banshee out for revenge or dope or both ready for a fight to attain it

“why?  why did you let them give it to me? i told that son of a bitch one shot i am gone!”

“it’s not dope.  they gave you methadone.  you are kicking real hard, it almost killed you.”

confused, angry, delirious, pain, fear, elation, negative, positive, love, hate all cycling

there were some visitors in the week i stayed locked up there-the boys, my mom

ted, a dealer or two to make sure this is what i wanted and to remind me they were

there when i changed my mind, but the price would go up without a bulk buy.

no one from the inside of that smoke filled room came or called no note no card

they told him to bring me a copy of the big book and a book of daily meditations

“this will really help in the hard times.  it saved my life.  thank god she’s getting clean!”

find your higher power, admit your defeat, find someone who will tell you the only

way to keep away from dope was to scrub toilets and fetch their slippers

that is how the whole things worked, ya know, you must humble yourself.

plastic chips, prayers with the forced hand holding, old timers nodding to sleep

because nothing that you have to say can beat what they saw in ‘nam!  punk kids!

the spiritually elite gave grandiose prose more elaborate than any preacher on tv

the cigarettes, if you don’t share then you will relapse and think of your kids

the sharks, the popularity, the stories that lasted hours turning into days

swimming into months of the back in the day bullshit dreaming of drink or dope

it’s the axis of their world that allows for the spinning of reality

one day the shark comes up asking for me to go to coffee with him

they have books, lists of rules, but they forget to give you the paperwork

of aa speak to english translations-coffee doesn’t mean coffee in that world

coffee means walking into an apartment with candles lit and a coffee table full of pills

a virtual nirvana, a junkie’s dream, with everything imaginable at my disposal

pills, soft, rigs, spoons, weed, crack, stems and chore boy, pick your poison

“it can all be yours, no one has to know, our little secret, just between you and me”

but see everything comes with a price, especially in the world of drugs and shadows

looking dreamily at the pile i forgot about payment, what was to be given to get

i forgot or forced it out until i felt the hands on my shoulders slip down my back

“i will give it all to you, anything you want, as much as you want, for free.”

snapped into the reality a slap in the face knowing that it doesn’t go down like that

“all i want for all this and more, is you, whenever i want you however i want you”

this repulsed me, it was vile and toxic, but the seduction of what lay in front of me

was too beautiful to even peel my eyes away, the bounty of banquet to a starving soul

here we were-two people who had walked this path before.  i saw it in him, he wore

it like a pink tuxedo,  top hat and monicul, in his face it was unavoidable who he was

but i was somewhat different.  my innocent eyes and pink cheeks shroud who i am what i do

something like a venus fly catcher oozing sweetness for the fly to land just so

pushing this to a certain point without compromise, a few well knitted lies

he wanted ownership and someone to feed his ego, that was the game

as the drugs flowed, and the coffee became a more regular occurrence

real life the real world was going on outside of me crumbling and decaying

one night of smashed glass and a broken nose and it came to a halt

there was a demand to pay up, spread your legs, bitch, you owe me

i wasn’t going down like this, and he didn’t know how intent i was on holding onto it

his face through glass table, dope in the purse, i grabbed the salt

poured it out on the face, a kick to the gut of the would be rapist in the name

of all who had come before and make him remember the pretty bitch

who won the next time he decided to hunt outside his territory

blues eyes and a cute smile isn’t really the indicator of trustworthy

a dope fiend is a dope fiend but this cowgirl ain’t a dope whore

the days of big book and daily meditation ended in a whisper

of my relapse and attack on the man who had 14 years

my dance of seduction invoked his defenseless masculinity

“then one day she just went crazy and beat him with a bottle”

after i had used my feminine wiles on him batting my eyes

and showing him just a bit of thigh, that’s what junkies do

it never mattered enough to argue about the details

fuck your big book, fuck your steps and traditions

fuck your 13th steppers and fuck you humility!

today i am clean.  no dope for years. by myself

there is no hidden truths to be found within

the walls of an aa room, only lies and deceit

a false sense of community until it matters

everyday a new fool is folded into the flock

everyday they are preyed on and lost

looking to those dementors for help

never realizing how fast and simple

they can suck the soul from the body

and devour it like a chunk of watermelon