She stalks beside me some nights, when I'm prowling, cat-in-heat and hunting jaguar, the ancient grace she always brings to my soul only lending spring to my steps and a faster rush of heat, desire, lust, need, hunger... no matter how deep I go into that bloodsoaked half-dream, she keeps pace beside me, urges me to go further, always further. She makes me feel alive.

And when the hunt is over? When I simply want to curl in a tangle of sheets and pillows and night breezes or nap the day away beneath the shade of a tree? She's there too, just as glad to share the peaceful moments; hell, she makes it easier to rest, to calm, to free myself of the horrible interlocking nightmares that keep my mind so fractured and my self so hidden these days. She unlocks the rusted bars, unwinds the coils of rope and raw leather, releases me to simply exist, content, at peace.

When she's near, I can talk, I can write, I can cope with a thousand people or just a few, I can be myself again. I can actually feel alive, with her.

Oh, come on, I know most of you figured out where this was going from the first few lines.

walking down the streets at night
i see her stumbling through the rain
a skinny figure in the dark
her face a shade of grey

begging here and barking there
she's swearing all the time
her fingers fumbling with her hair
a dirty mess of grime

and she starts to cry and she's asking why
her life's always the same
but she does not see, that unfortunately
there's no one here to blame

"heroin" she said, "was the best i had...
no more mountains left to climb.
the world so slow... all my dreams just too high
to be fulfilled in time...!"

she grabs my arm... and i feel alarmed
her fingers gripping tight
i see her pleading eyes... so i start to disguise
and say, that everything's alright...

and the reason why i pretended and lied
is that i don't want to kill
the poor dream that's left in the deepest cleft
of the thing that she calls will...!

"heroin" she said...

No, don't worry. I'm not shooting up, I'm not even popping pills. I wish I was. I wish I could face the idea of leaving the house, walking, moving, talking to people, interacting, doing anything other than sitting motionless trying not to feel or think. I wish I could feel her touch again, that vicious perfect lover that makes me... normal. Alive. Happy.

Yeah. I'm addicted to opiates. I haven't had any in weeks, this isn't withdrawal talking, this isn't the physical addiction I'm speaking of. I'm addicted to the fucking things because without them I can't walk, can't dance, can't even sit up some days, sure as hell can't pretend to be happy about the fact that my body has fallen apart and taken my mind with it. I'm addicted to being able to walk up a flight of stairs without nearly blacking out. I'm addicted to being able to lift more than about three pounds without feeling like I got kicked in the back. I'm addicted to waking up and NOT being in pain. I'm addicted to falling asleep without enough drugs to knock out a racehorse. I'm addicted to feeling good about myself, because I'm not a useless miserable blob. I'm addicted to being able to have an actual LIFE. I'm addicted to being able to sit at the computer without being in constant pain. I'm addicted to looking over my shoulder and not wincing in the process. I'm addicted to being able to get myself a glass of fucking water if I want one, not having to ask someone else to get it for me.

I'm addicted. Incredibly addicted. Which is really funny, considering how rarely I actually HAVE the thing I'm hooked on.

I'm sitting here, typing because if I tried to say any of this aloud I'd already be in tears, and just typing this, just moving my hands, arms, shoulders, enough to write this entry is causing me a LOT of pain. It HURTS to write, to talk, to fucking BREATHE. Is it really all that surprising that I'm struggling with depression?

Like most addicts, I'm ashamed to admit that I AM addicted. I don't want to think about it. Unlike most addicts, I've got enough willpower to only get my fix in legal, sane ways... so far. What do you do when a black market fix can be found in a day but it takes literally YEARS to find a doctor willing to even TRY to help legally? What do you do when you know there are junkies out there having on a daily basis something I am lucky if I get once every four or five months?

You cope, that's what you do. You keep going. Keep telling yourself that this time, this doctor, this month, this week, this day, it's going to work out somehow. Someone will finally say 'oh hey, you seem pretty miserable there, let's figure out why, and fix it, and oh hey, while we're doing that, here's something so that you can finally STOP HURTING for a month or two'.

I keep hoping.

And yet I keep finding myself writing entries like these, trying to put what's gnawing at me into words because at least then I can lock a bit of it away, trap it in text, pretend that writing it, saying it, helps enough to make it through one more night.

Lorazipam... it helped, a lot, but going off the buspirone abruptly had me seriously suicidal when it left my system. I've been taking both, trying to climb back out of that hole, and now I'm out. Amatryptaline, propanalol, I hate them both but if I stop either one Bad Things Happen - I particularly want to get back off them because they seem to be pretty directly responsible for a large part of my weight gain. Tramidol? Heh. It's like giving someone an aspirin for a broken leg. Yeah, it's better than nothing, better than advil or aspirin or tylenol or alieve. It still doesn't actually WORK.

I haven't had a pain-free day that didn't involve opiates in over four years.

I haven't had a day where I could say from start to finish, waking to sleeping, that I was completely happy, that didn't involve opiates in over two years.

I haven't had an opiate-free day where the thought of just killing myself to make it STOP HURTING didn't show up at least once or twice at any point in the last year.

Want to know what's REALLY funny? When I left my parents and moved to Portland, I swore I would never take another pill even if it killed me, I was so sick of the things my mother insisted I ingest. I didn't smoke pot, didn't drink, didn't do any drugs, didn't even smoke cigarettes.

I hate what I've become.

One of the hellish bits is that I can tell if I could just get a few months where I could MOVE, could stop being horribly depressed (which tends to make me eat and self-harm, thanks for that lovely little set of trained responses, mom), at least half of the weight and a good 90% of the general misery would be gone. I've been trying for two years now to get a doctor to give me two months of the meds I actually REQUEST, just two months, so I can prove this. Give me two months of not hurting, and I will be exercising. Give me two months of not hurting, and I will have no new scars. Give me two months of not hurting, and you will see a transformation that will BLOW YOUR MIND. Hell, those who see me regularly can tell when someone's put me on decent painkillers for a few weeks, because I drop a good 10 pounds and actually smile without having to think about it.

Ehh.

It's getting late. I've got things I'm hoping to do - Saturday night, time for Rocky, time to hope I can cope long enough to earn a few bucks and stay part of the social circle. I'm terrified because my back is already hurting enough today that I'm having trouble breathing, and now I'm going to go sit out on concrete for 3-4 hours, the only back support a concrete wall, stifling my twitches and terror and pain long enough to make sure that next week, the week after that, if I can make it out I'll still have a place.

I'm terrified because every time I go there, I interact with at least three people who could get me any drug I asked for.

I won't ask.

I'll wish, and dream, and maybe even kick myself afterward for NOT asking.

But I won't ask.

I'm still strong enough to torture myself a little bit longer. *wry grin* And strong enough to write, to put this down in black and white, giving myself one more reason to keep that strength.

"heroin" she said, "was the best i had...
no more mountains left to climb.
the world so slow... all my dreams just too high
to be fulfilled in time...!"