i’m sitting on the dirty carpet in l’s basement. everything smells like ferret piss. i might be young but i am not afraid of you and your razor blades and mirrors and scales. prior to this moment i had never seen cocaine in real life but something in me wants it badly as soon as it appears. the careful actions of weighing, cutting lines, rolling dirty bills and inhaling are propelled by the same instincts that guide my hands when i eat, when i brush my teeth, when i type. everything feels natural.

the pain is not what i was expecting, not more or less but different, hot and cold rammed through my sinuses and directly into my brain and then trickling slowly through every inch of my body until the feeling reaches the very tip of each finger. and then everything is perfect, perfect, perfect, sharp and clear like broken glass in the chemical opposite-of-fog enveloping me. the bitter taste, that quiet reminder that this is not really me, is a small price i am willing to pay to exist so brightly.

for the next four years i am alive. i may be fighting and clawing and struggling to stay so but i keep going, going, with the knowledge that all i need to do is breathe deep to fix everything.

after a certain point the pain is irrelevant and i am alone with the strangely vibrant person that i suddenly am. i am related only in the barest of minimum ways now to you and l and your dirty basement and your skinny greasy business associates and the messy parties and this abrupt new world that appeared and grew with my understanding of my own mind.