heroin

Ive been shooting heroin for a decade.

age 13. stretched out on a heating vent in front of my bedroom i finish the final pages of junky; as i put the book down i dont know where to begin to find junk but wish i did.

a few years later. hopping a bus to new york to see coldplay on their first US tour. before they became over-produced shit. its valentine's day. the plan is to meet a friend from rochester with a friend with a couch to crash on. rest our eyes. we dont meet. i scalp my ticket to an enthusiastic college girl who later writes to let me know chris martin didnt bring his voice on stage. he lost it to laryngitis. stress. cigarettes. something. left it in a box somewhere on the subway. that i didnt miss anything.
we stumble around new york lost. a girl on church steps rattles her broken voice for spare change. money for a hotel room. cash for a place to stay the night. i offer her twenty to sleep on the floor of wherever she ends up. her friend in the bronx sleeps in a basement apartment. we wait. hop the train to the bronx. stumble into the basement apartment. they scatter: phoenix. josh. and whats his name. one of them mumbles mid-fix: i hope you dont mind: we are heroin addicts.

the first time. i cant even sit up. nausea.
i picture myself in the wild. in a cabin. surrounded by brisk air. a down comforter up to my chin. cozycozy cozy warm. half asleep. waking up to the sound of my own laughter. this is how it feels on the nod. like being half asleep in a cabin. so cozy warm that you'd rather piss yourself than get up.

cops have asked me why i ever thought it might be a good idea to stick a needle in my arm. it just comes down to one thing: curiosity. to know. most people see junkies, see them struggle, see them rot go to jail prison mental institutions and see shooting heroin as a bad  idea that leads to those behaviors and those places. i saw the motivation. that if junkies are willing to do those things and go those places, that whatever motivated their actions and took them to those places must be worth it.

Im 30. i forgot that innocence lost can never be found.