DOSE:

Methamphetamine

BODY WEIGHT:

140 lb

For what?

For everything. For the universe in your palm, lightning in a bottle, to make sense of everything that is in disarray. Every hit brings a renewed promise of that kick-in-the-chest-mind-numbing-make-you-want-to-peak-again-and-again feeling. A promise of never ending and unimaginable insatiability. For the cold, steel-ridden whine of that bell that was rung the first time you hit that pipe. Holding your breath for weeks on end.

What started as a bump here and there became notepads full of license plates. Side-eyeing everyone’s hidden agenda, desperately trying to figure out their next move before they strike. But who? Surely you don’t know, but one thing is for certain – they are coming. We don’t know when, we don’t even know how but they are. Nights spent in the dark, duct taped sheets covering the windows of the scummy motel because those god forsaken curtains just don’t cover every millimeter and you never know who might be peering in on you. A piece of duct tape stuck on to the eye hole of the door. Life becomes a relentless quest for privacy. Even when no one is around, someone is around. Even when no one is watching, someone always is. The meth tells you so. It tell you to watch out, to inspect, to obsess and to be consumed. You sit dark, illuminated only by the half minute glow from the lighter flickering just below the glass.

The bugs only used to come after days of no sleep, now they are ever-present. Always there, but never seeming to fully materialize. Sometimes they do; dig, scrape, pick and claw deep enough and you’ll sometimes find one. Bringing it to light like some sort of proof that demons exist only to watch it disintegrate into this reality, the proof that you are not crazy slips through your fingertips.

Paranoia begins her enveloping courtship with you. She demands everything of you. This is when crazy begins. Numbers and symbols begin to connect with great significance. A random person walks up to you and starts a conversation, cuts off mid-sentence and walks away only to have another random person pick up exactly where the last one left off. Impossible coincidences, impossible realities. Strangers mumbling not only your name but deeply personal things. Shameful things. Irreconcilable things. Dark things, dark lines you have crossed while on meth. Crossing lines of your morality, society’s constructed view of your sexuality.

You think you’re in hell but the ride is just beginning, the coaster has yet to reach the first drop. Entities are always present, they can’t be people, they can’t be real. They don’t speak, they impose their thoughts on you. Like a marionette you dance and twitch to their will. Glass strings hold you up, pin you to that puppeteer’s hand. But who is the puppeteer? Are they a benevolent entity? Is it me? Is it really just the meth? Is the meth a doorway showing me the truths hidden behind what has always been presented as real? No, get a grip, handle yourself like a proper tweaker.

Crash and spin, load and inhale. Now you’re in the thick of it. Relationships and responsibilities disappear as you dig deeper to find the truth, but about what? About yourself? The meth has become your ally in your journey, the one thing that has been more or less consistent. You can count on it. This is the power, to present the facts without filter to your mind and yet you yourself filter them out. The meth is killing you, it’s ruining you, yet its kin to you. Everything and everyone else that tries to separate you from it is now an enemy. Your eyes are grey, sunken and cheekbones jutting. There is no hiding it, only from yourself. What a trap, the smoke inhales so easy but the exhale costs you everything.

This is for you. Yes you, reading this right now. Reminiscing or maybe even anticipating that next high. Thinking that the irreversible has been done, that nothing can replace what meth has so convincingly told you to throw away. And that is meth’s final attempt at control, to convince you that life is now different, that you are lost and can never come back.

I have been there with you, the darkest parts of the ride. Smiling the entire way; shriveled, broken, desolate but feeling cool with that crystal in my pocket and in my blood. Nothing is too late, nothing is too far gone. It took months for the voices to stop fully, for the paranoia to subside. Even now almost 5 years later my body sometimes still drops and I feel that kick in the chest as I begin to quake.

Waking from those dreams so real you can smell the smoke.

Exp Year: 2019	ExpID: 113809
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 25
Published: Feb 10, 2021	Views: 869
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Methamphetamine (37) : Poetry (43), Retrospective / Summary (11), Not Applicable (38)