Heroin ("...she's funny that way...")

 Heroin is... similar to a vampire, in the sense, that it is absolutely romanticized and must be invited in; and once that vein is extended, you are an object of whim for the intruder. As a fifteen year old, with a brain not sustained by mediocrity or consumerism, I awaited her invitation with the same fervor as I would a Reese's Cup after an hour in the fridge. She wasn't a creature I sought out, I assumed she would find me if I was to be a host to her ways - the type of restraint I give all aspects of life sans matters of the heart.

My efforts here are not to beguile the curious with tragic fantasies of creative destruction. The journey has been far from anything noteworthy, interesting, or gratifying. A half-dozen overdoses over our 35-year on and off again marriage has dramatically sniped years of life barely worth living. There is no romantic palette by which I have given brush stroke to my genius or tethered my curious ways to a stranger's synapses. I am a shattered frame co-existing with an abusive partner in a day to day framed by regrets of an emerging day and hollowed-out joy until darkness invites me back to another round. Heroin is not my scapegoat, I made the choices that have brought me here, and honestly, she offered me no words taking me in one direction or another. As mentioned, she exists both independent and carrion to my life. 

Let's stroke those notions you have of burning brilliantly with this ravenous muse. Her fascinating ability to be all things, a yin and yang of unlocked treasures and cancerous ruin. She is the Faustian relationship that has given those that nursed at her silver teat such tragic rapport. I've always been taken by the fact that she can be purely white, with a consistency of powdered sugar (China White); and also a craggy, sticky, black base, as if snapped from the caves of Tartarus (Tar Heroin). I often thought in a cartoonish sense - an angel (China White) on one shoulder, and the devil (Tar Heroin) on the other. In between, me, with a complexion similar to the Mexican Heroin that nurtured my generation. China White arrived in Western society as opium, and quickly took bed with Nietzsche, Picasso, Breton, Baudelaire and countless other literary and artistic poster children. It was the Jazz Age muse of choice, and we fondly remember those that offered us such explosive glimpses into their creativity. Less frequently, we dwell on the near collapse of Chinese society, when in the 18th Century, they realized that Heroin was more famine than feast and instead married her away to the much more "forward-thinking" Westerners in exchange for financing their nation. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. The collective ash of those heroes inspired a new generation of left-brained luminaries that ushered in the Lysergic acid diethylamide generation that in an opium-prohibited existence, developed the tar heroin that was as incendiary as an oil sheen on placid surfaces. She slept in the beds of Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson - giving path to youthful minds looking to shatter the oppressive realities of endless wars and a political system that stood patriotically on the throats of wayward, directionless, dregs. Again, Heroin disappears into the night having burned her bedfellows to cinders, while also once again doing so in such an intoxicating manner that another generation can do nothing but seek her out to "fix her" and make her a palatable companion in their creative pursuits. Barely mentioned in the dossier of her autobiography is the countless, nameless deaths she ushered. Her affair extended secretly to the very people that maligned her name, brought to our shores, thousands of kilos at a time in exchange for weapons and wars abroad; sold to those wayward, wild-eyed youth. Arriving at my generation, us Gen-Xers, so much apathy and disdain. Our fuses were short by design... emerging into a society that can no longer survive on the income of one parent. I'm not even going to insult you with the list of our luminaries - because their existence is so enshrined with heroin-chic that it has permeated their identity. They are as much defined by heroin as anything they created, there is no separation from artist and muse; we've arrived at the climax of our journey where the vampire no longer lusts after you, she now simply devours and offers you back to the earth. Those finding balance in their relationship with her are few, and wear scars and decay as part of their existence. Perhaps Gen-X was the perfection of her craft; her masterpiece to consumption and creativity; brilliance burning to ash as an homage to disaffected spiritualism and nurtured-decay from birth to grave. Arriving today, the muse is tired, lazy, and only gives effort to feeding. She no longer needs a host to swathe and wax poetic to her ego, she simply lays waste without regard; her legacy defined in centuries of "brilliance", her path now is simply ruin. Heroin will use whatever device necessary to break you at the spine and smother the light from the moment of her kiss; there is no spell, no promises, no graves left for the revered.

Let me apologize for personifying Heroin as a female. As a heterosexual male, it's the manner in which I define it, as a partner with whom I've had my longest, consistent relationship. I'm not intending to draw parallels between women and heroin; just that in the context of my living with heroin, it's been a marriage with binding contracts. 

Now that I have romanticized this muse, and given you the narrowest of representations of her star pupils, let's talk reality. The exchange of "goods" is barely a fair one. It is you that extended the invitation, and you are not without generous resume of her talents. Perhaps, as with most resumes, it's flourish is in the accomplishments, and much thinner in the details. I am not going to lie to you, the snap of your flesh followed by a flood of warmth and the sudden thrust out of your self is beyond what words can define. Depending on your circumstance, that mere moment alone is inescapable, and beckons for a lifetime. And I mean a lifetime - it is a scar that you will wear until your last breath. No amount of methadone, detoxing, life-changing will grant you a reprieve from that sensation. Each and every return to that embrace erodes and begs you to give your full potential to wrap yourself as tightly in that embrace. Your body rots slowly, the only offering such a partner can accept, and if you give her carte blanche, she can be your entire life and meet your every need; because she will be the only thing that matters to you. She is not dissuaded by your love-bombing, cursing of her name, your willingness to do ANYTHING to return to her embrace. Unconditional love. Your best hope of keeping her out of your home is to build as many barriers as you are humanly capable between she and you. Those are the people that will take her full wraith by the efforts you and her will take to reunite. The stack of bodies must be hearty, resilient, worthy, patient beyond human endurance; this is your safe room. The gravity of their love and the risk of their loss is your only weapon in defending yourself from your abusive ex.

This may seem counter-intuitive to your New Jack City education, but the best dealer is the one who also has relationship with your partner. This is especially critical today; it can be the only barometer by which you can trust the product you are about to imbue. As previously mentioned, the consistency, color, presentation of heroin is a full-spectrum and it's impossible to know how pure it is. The poppy that produced the original batch of heroin is sold to an "organization" who then "cut" that heroin and mix it with other "substances" in order to turn one kilo of heroin into two or three kilos. This is how you make profit as the "organization". Now, multiply that process of cutting by however many cooks exist between you and that first batch or pure heroin, likely at least 3 generations, unless you are celebrity - but as we know, need over caution usually results in cutting corners. Hoffman, Michael K Williams are reminders, that today, the landscape gives no reprieve to status. This generation's heroin is cut (mixed) with fentanyl and any host of insane chemical concoctions. Substances so powerful that even minute exposure can arrest the heart in seconds, or eat away your flesh in some type of Romero/Savini fever dream. Buying blind is extremely dangerous now, and getting heroin that won't outright kill you is not a proposition with odds in your favor. Addiction to fentanyl happens so much more regularly and quickly than any iteration of heroin through the ages; it's the best possible outcome of an encounter with the drug that has been cut with fentanyl or other chemicals. If you are chasing some romantic ideals of ghosts or liberated creativity, the odds are infinitesimal that you will find your muse - she is taking your breath without an afterthought. You will be among staggering statistics and left nameless in your brief journey.

Still possibly mesmerized by the prospect? Allow me, if you will, to describe the sensation that arrives with heroin cut with a chemical. The warm rush of leaving your body is slightly altered. Upon popping the tourniquet holding your journey at bay, the blast through your veins is a white-hot fire that feels like your veins are fuses burning to ash, and you have only a moment to wonder if the second this invader hits your brain, if it won't explode as if a firework. The pain is unbearable until that contact when your brain floods with chemicals and the flash of brilliant white is the last cohesive certainty you will have that you are about to die. As I said, you may not die, you may only have a lifetime dependence on cocktails of heroin and household chemicals, or your skin might start decaying and sloughing off from your body. The only relief from this reality is a reintroduction to the incendiary torture you just endured. 

The "Maybe, Just Oncers" - I see you. Let's suspend reality for a moment, in that your first foray with heroin won't include fentanyl or some kind of horse tranquilizer. Can you do it, experience it, and stop? Yes, you could. Let's for argument's sake, take your guilty pleasure, whatever it is, some kind of sexual kink, a food, a beverage, an experience - and I asked you if you could only do that once and never again despite it being prevalent in your life, despite it begging and promising you one more time will be just like the first, and it will feel as good and it will be fine? Again, if you are this person, you likely don't have that dealer we talked about, so you are buying blind and your odds of dodging a bullet are exponentially decreasing each time - but if you can do that and live your life without revisiting that sensation, you are somehow stronger than millions of people who felt the same inner-confidence. 

You might be asking, "what's the aftermath of a perfect pairing with heroin feels like?" That first time, your day after isn't going to feel great. You are likely to spend a good part of your day vomiting and with chills; equivalent to your worst hangover. Again, this is if you got a clean cut of heroin. You and I are living in a utopia right now where reality is suspended. Each subsequent visitations with the drug will give you less euphoria and more sickness; sometimes lasting for days (the sickness that is). There is a fix for that, but I'm afraid it's an ouroboros kind of journey from here on out. Let's assume you transgress from mental addiction to physical addiction. That journey (again, under utopian rules), is three to four passages through the looking glass. I can't speak to smoking or oral consumption of heroin - I know only that's it's effects are lessened and have tempered duration; I don't know if it's any less an addictive path. The OxyContin epidemic would suggest it is not a suitable loophole. What does physical addiction feel like? Assuming again, you've escaped any number or tagalongs in this idealist reality we've constructed, such as AIDS, Hepatitis, Necrosis - you're day to day will feel like a never-ending flu. No appetite, scattered thoughts, unbearable stomach pains that radiate into organs you've never had a "sensation" from before, a diminished mood, and depression. Yes, there is relief from this, and yes, that is more heroin. Okay, so what does withdrawal feel like? All of the above, but that first 72 hours are dialed up to about a 10. Hallucinations, fever, your stomach will churn with a ferocity that feels like an alien has taken up residence and is trying to escape, you can feel your heart pounding with an intensity you're confident it's not meant to sustain, all the while your adamant that the pain will only ever end if you shoot up again. Postponing this withdrawal agony is a much better alternative to the agony itself. Being a lover of a good possession-film, I would describe my experiences with withdrawal as heroin being this tan-colored entity that has taken my veins and wrapped them tightly around all of my organs to the point that only a trickle of blood-flow is possible, but every nerve-ending is writhing in complete despair. The process of withdrawal is an invisible force pulling at those cancerous, miles-long tethers suffocating your organs to free your body of it's demon. Tolerable, it is not in any regard, but it's a passage you must transgress to survive without heroin. With any chaotic surrender to addiction, like cancer, you are never really free of it's embrace. Your brain has been rewired to accept it's invitation, and despite all you have endured, it's that guilty pleasure you deserve, and your contract with heroin clearly states that it's a relationship you will have in perpetuity, until in death do you part. 

This is my journey; I could say, fortunate; utopian maybe. I am after all, sitting here writing this. However, in the subsequent collapse of that world, I remain with an addiction that forages for fixes among a forest of lethality; bargaining with strangers to take heed with my mere existence in exchange for $20. For the most part, it's been a barter I've avoided for the better part of twenty-ish years, absolving myself of want in exchange for family. Now without such confines, I find the wander into the forest unforgiving. Lying in a hospital bed after nearly dying from fentanyl poisoning; toxicity coursing like a welder's flame through my veins; I wonder if any reason of rejection is an invitation to try and die. Is it romantic to have barely lived the life I was given? Will I be simply nameless to the unobserved? Have I lived a legacy worthy of artists I embraced; no, of course not. I am simply a flawed human being that did what millions of others have done with an arrogance that belongs to equally flawed humans that survived erasure from history because somehow they mattered more than you and I. When I go home, hopefully later today, god-willing, I will do so vexxed by humility, in a vessel torn to shreds, with no thought of my stupidity or carelessness - but of a desire to find that utopian-revisit to my vampire. She has not yet consumed my flesh, and for an addict, that's confirmation of an open-invitation to her embrace. The love she offers is toxic, but the greater pain is to be without her.