Addict:
A heroin addict’s needle breaks against his skin. It tears a bloody hole. Blood drips against the syringe, but he carries on with the procedure. Methodical, like a doctor. He applies pressure. To the uncut arm, of course. A vein bulges. The perfect target for his operation. The satisfaction courses. Overwhelming. All the blood and broken bones could never stop him. He knows it’s killing him, yet he continues. For him, this is love. So pure and innocent. His sweet sixteen. He’d hook himself up and let his brain and body melt away into that old familiar euphoria. When he started, it was because he was bored. He had this desperation to be fantastic, and heroin made him feel like a god as his body twisted into an unrecognisable, ugly. This was his church, and he’d devoted himself to this form of worship. The creator of his own destruction, yet for him it felt like creation. While the drugs were great, he missed feeling as though he belonged amongst humans. He was sickeningly homesick for feeling human.
When his parents kicked him out, that should’ve been a wake-up call, but in that instance, he knew what he wanted more than ever. As he wandered the empty streets surrounded by addicts, his body ached and shivered for his cure. And as his shaking hands scrambled desperately with the needle under the streetlight, he felt more alive than ever. There was no guilt. In the absence of guilt, there was a vague sense of accomplishment. This man wasn’t crazy. He was human. A walking Pandora’s box of desire. It was in his eyes. That animalistic hunger for another fix. This was a man who had given it all to feel everything. As he leaned against the cold brick wall, a man gave him money. Money to buy more. Ordinary life always felt so painfully monotone, painted in grey and black. But with her, it was a watercolour painting of everything he’d always wanted. When the needle was empty, he would stay with his childhood friends. People who’d have trusted him with anything. He swore he would get clean. In a desperate, shaking voice, he’d beg for a place to stay for a couple of days. Just while he found his feet or a rehab willing to take him.
As they slept, he’d steal and sell the items they cared so much about. Their newborn baby’s shoes, their dad’s old watch from before he died, and their mother’s wedding dress. Anything that he could get his hands on. He’d sneak back out into the bitter, biting night to dance once more with his lover under the stars. She was beautiful. Dressed in that familiar outfit. Him in his torn rags and her in that white ball gown. He’d heat up the spoon until it burnt and sizzled against the flesh on his hand. The burn marks a testimony of his adoration for her. This was their foreplay. He was such a gentleman, preparing her with such a delicacy that it could only be regarded as intimacy. To him, it didn’t matter if everyone thought of him as nothing more than a sick junkie. He knew that if they danced with her, they’d understand what he saw in her. This was his angel on earth. There was no difference between a bible and a needle. They both contained religion.
The more he did, the briefer the time she’d devote to him became. When the shivers and pain came crawling back like a stray dog, he’d repeat his routine with her meticulously. While he was a mess, he treated the procedure like a machine carries out its instructions. Focused, ordered. The process was like poetry, and the result was art. She’d kiss him gently as she returned and run her perfectly manicured hands through his decaying hair. Beauty caressing rot. Whispering that nothing would ever hurt him again. There were times when she wasn’t around, or he was too poor to afford her love. During these times, he’d break his bones just to be hospitalised so they’d provide him with another lover similar to her, but not quite what he needed. Bones heal, and his commitment was stronger than any pain could be.
This was a man who had experienced more than most ever would. He’d felt the joys of life and the painful kicking of its birth as well. He’d clung to shadows, hiding his dirty secret, keeping it all for himself. There is beauty in addiction. The empty husk of a needle is no different from a writer whose pen runs out of ink mid-sentence. They are both artists perfecting their craft. The word abuse is often used when describing addicts. But he could never dream of abusing her. He loved her too much. He never bruised her, yet his arms were marked and spotted with holes in which he’d pour his devotion. He knew his body was temporary. Death was something everyone had to confront, and he didn’t fear it arriving earlier than anticipated as long as he was facing it with her beside his bed. Gently holding his now fragile hands in her alive and warm hands, smelling of fresh flowers as she always did. He was a leaf drifting from its tree in the autumn wind. In the depths of despair, he felt a happiness that felt holy. A church that only he could pray to. A temple left in ruins.