Light Junkie

The current state of affairs is my own fault. I did that thing that stupid White people have done for centuries because I did not believe. Nor did I respect. Much to my own peril.

There was no demon. There was no God(s) and nothing in the universe but stars. So of course there was nothing would happen. I’d memorized the incantation to break out at parties or to scare street dealers.

I did the dumbest thing, I did the incantations. I did the entire ceremony and it came. It came oozing like ink inside me. I could hear it inside my skull, low coppery laughter that stung my synapses and burned my nerves.

It was nothing like on tv, there were no explosions or smells of sulfur or anything. One moment I was human, and the next I was being swallowed by a need so huge- all I am is need.

Once upon a time I had a golden arm. For a while my entire life revolved around the acquisition and shooting of as fine a grade of heroin as I could afford.

Speaking from that experience, I am what us professionals call alpha sad dog junkie. I lived it for a very long time. Among some of the other junkies I knew at the time I was king sucks dick for horse type.

I know need.

I remember the days waking up sick and shaking. The sweating and pants shitting and tears, I cried all the time.

Thinking about that life, I thought I knew need. Every time I laid in my own shit covered in sweat trying to detox in jail, I would tell myself all the ways I knew shit.

I knew nothing.

The sun is coming up outside, I can feel it. My arm is burning. It wants, it needs I can feel it inside chewing.

What was I saying?

Right, king shit fuck junkie, blablabla.

The demon knew, the moment it entered my body. It swallowed my need for heroin and replaced it with something so much worse.

The next morning upon waking from what I hoped was simply a bad dream when I stumbled into the hall and the sun hit my face it felt like my brain in a this is your brain on drugs commercial.

Fire lanced through my eyes and into my brain. I was screaming and flopping around, my roommate thought I had been smoking wet. I sweated and raged until he got a blanket over my head.

That was bad enough. I remember his voice quavery with fear.

“Dude, dude, what did you smoke? Come on man, I ain’t mad. Just tell me.”

It was worse than the times I had almost OD’d or temporarily died on friends' floors or in gas station bathrooms.

I don’t remember much else from that first morning except the pain, the pulling in my veins and cramps in my legs. It was like kicking, but worse. So much worse.

The first time I fixed in the light it was glorious. Maybe it was junkie instinct, but I found my spot, my left arm and my one good vein. I sat and angled myself in the corner of the bathroom and waited for the sun to show. I eased that beam of sunlight into my arm like a fresh needle and it felt so damn good.

It was better than China White, better than black Tar. Better than sex.

The light, the sun burns me. My demon is a thing of darkness that is addicted to light. To its own destruction.

I wish I was being poetic. Back in the day when I rode the monkey rather than it riding me, I wrote poems. Sometimes late at night I’d read them to girls my apartment. If I had tried harder I could have gotten good at it.

Instead, I got good at being a junky.

Now, here I am. Holed up in the closet of a less fucked demon, waiting for my fix.

My sweat reeks of The Pit, the later it gets, the more I hurt. My veins are crying for it. My guts are twisting and I’m swilling cheap gin as if it will help.

One stupid thing and here is where I am.

An infernal sun junkie craving a hot shot.