“You need me! Without me … you’re nothing! I keep you alive.”
“Are you kiddin’ me? This isn’t living.”
“How dare you interrupt me! You entitled, insecure, unappreciative little brat! I give you hope. I give you purpose. I give you meaning. If you leave me now, you’ll die. You’ll have nothing to get you by.”
“Stop shouting at me!”
“No. You need to hear this. Without me, you itch and scratch. You cut yourself and laugh.”
“I hate you!”
“No. You hate yourself. That’s why I’m here.”
These words dropped into the deepest cavern of my soul. A distance as far low as the highest peak at Mt. Kilimanjaro.
I look out the small window into an ever-changing world. “I see all these people walking by, going about their lives. Not seeing me or what I have survived. Not caring if I live or I die… I want to be free. As these people are free of me.”
“And that’s why you have to trust me… Reality is overrated. Hope is not what it used to be. Truth is outdated. And happiness has become synonymous with hedonism. So why not let me stay the night? I can sleep upstairs in your mind. Or, maybe you can let me into the basement. I know it’s flooded. But I can make a hammock from collapsed veins. After all, you don’t need them anymore.”
“Of course you would say that. You live to capitalize on my pain. But I need something solid and strong to stand on.”
“You can trust me… I promise to be here when you fall. A puff. A line. A drop. I have no shortages of names. Or, if you prefer, you can keep me on call.”
“My scars say, ‘No!’” I look down at my arms. “I can’t pretend you haven’t betrayed me in the past. I can’t leave my valuables with a thief. I can’t give the leading role of my life to a diva. I can’t listen to you anymore. I won’t! Trusting you has led me here. Talking to myself. In front of the mirror. In a white, padded room with scratches on the walls.” I raise my hands, palms up, and bend my fingers, remembering healthy, pink squares at the ends of my fingertips. “You’ve turned them into nubs. They scream in pain. But you don’t hear them.”
“Don’t blame me for your poor decisions.”
“I’m done with you!”
“Let me guess… You’ve found religion?”
“No. I’m in a relationship.”
“Relationship with who?” He laughs. “No one here cares about you.”
“With Someone who knows me intimately and loves me unconditionally. And He won’t share me with anyone, especially you.”
He jeers. “You’ll be back.”
I smile back. “Not if I keep my eyes on Him.”
The toilet flushes.
I originally titled this short story “If Drugs Could Talk” but I thought it was too revealing. With that said, this is an imagined conversation happening in the mind of an addict.