Degenerated

As only a junky can understand another junky, an alcoholic can share solace with an alcoholic, a queer can spot another fag in a room full of filthy breeders; can anyone understand the despair of the insidious depression that had wracked my trembling form for the past few days.

I had hit rock bottom. Nothing interested me. I did not go out. I did not socialize. And, if I did attempt this, I only stared at those garrulous beings in hateful contempt. I did not write. I did not eat. I did not sleep. All things - all of them - that had previously given me some remembrance of joy, had now simply given me nothing.

Horrible depression. Wracked with it, enveloped in it. I sat on my couch for hours and stared at nothing. Yet, my mind reeled with millions upon millions of fractured images.

I sat naked in my darkened apartment pondering why was I in Tijuana? Why did I move from a relatively comfortable existence - decent job, nice apartment, circle of caring friends - only to wind up in a ratty studio with no furniture save for a smelly bed, filthy futon, and a television on milk crates? Never any food in the kitchen on the account I did not eat - the refrigerator really didn’t work anyway, keeping the ever present orange juice barely luke warm.

When I first relocated to Tijuana, the apartment was full of new furniture - in time, all sold or traded for dope. My bank account, now non-existent.

And the company I kept - if I cared to keep - all junkies, thieves, male prostitutes, back-stabbing faggots.

I sat - cold from the dried sweat that covered my withered torso - holding the charred glass pipe in my dirty hand, fingers covered in black.

I lay down on my side and stared at the gray, blank television screen and I began to sob. Where did I go wrong? I had no one to blame, but myself. I had lost everything from material to personal possessions and had degenerated into a self-absorbed, arrogant mess. I trusted no one. I did not yearn for the company of anybody.

Yet, the loneliness howled through me like a black wind - chipped away in chunks whatever sociable, caring person I once was.

I reined in my deep sobs and concluded I had to take control of the situation. I had to stop. I sat back up, took the empty baggie that was laying on the wooden arm of the futon couch and skillfully extracted the few precious, remaining flecks of meth. I dropped them carefully, lovingly into the bulb of the pipe.

As I lit up, inhaling those gray fumes of death and destruction, I told myself, Tomorrow - tomorrow, I will quit.