You, the Addict

I.

We met at a coffee shop. We caught each others' eye and smiled. We exchanged first name for first name.

This should have been an easy story to tell.

II.

You loved me and left me, loved me and left me, weaving in and out of my life like a sports car in medium-to-congested traffic. Sometimes you would leave my apartment and I would realize that my shirt was on backwards. You did things to me that I didn’t understand. You took my snowglobe world and shook it to see the pretty colors but you didn’t realize that I bled every time.

III.

You became my friend and I became your friend. I think it was when you started smoking heroin around me that I realized that I could officially call you “friend,” because you don’t do that in front of someone you’re trying to impress. You weren’t trying to impress me and all I wanted to do was impress you, I the tortured genius artist with the big boobs wanted to impress you, the junky.

Go figure. What a waste.

I would watch you light a flame under the foil and suck the fumes rising from the penny-colored paths through a rolled-up receipt. I would try to catch your eye but you wouldn’t want to look at me. This became customary and I fell in love with you despite it, because of it even. I wanted to save you from everything, including yourself.

IV.

One autumn came, one winter, one spring, one summer, and another autumn, another winter. They all left. One year and one half after the day that you waltzed into my life and began to cut the corners off of it with Little Fiskars, I began to waltz around, floating, with a dreamy glass covering the forest floor of my eyes. I was finally able to claim you, call you mine. You said the words “I think I love you” and I took even your ambiguity to be the very words of God. I clasped your promises, few and far between and small that they were, in my frighteningly cold hands, and I prayed that these promises would grow to become a life. Because I wanted a life with you. Me, the young writer with so much promise, me, I wanted a life with the addict.

I thought a lot of you back then and I guess I still do, even lying here on this floor watching you kneel over me screaming, “Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” as you shakily try to dial 911.

V.

When you left for the detox center on a random Tuesday evening in February, you were wearing that purple tie that I always wanted to use to pull your face closer to mine. I never had the bravery to do those kinds of things with you.

You left me a Marlboro box stuffed full of folded up foils. You said, “I’m getting sober. I’m getting clean. I’m trying to be a better man. Will you dispose of these for me? I don’t trust myself to do it.” And then you drove away.

VI.

It’s been a while since you left for the detox center on a random Tuesday evening in February. There is a thick silence between you and me. There is something unrequited. And that’s why I’m here.

I’m laying on the floor surrounded by crumpled up foils, their copper trails singed to a black the consistency of tar. My room holds the acrid stench of drugs that kill, and they’re killing me. I smoked nine foils in three hours. It’s a lot more than you used to smoke, and you had been building up a tolerance for years.

I’m laying on the floor with my heart not really beating, just murmuring, just whispering, just telling me that everything will be okay in a few minutes through my blood that is sluggishly moving along. I’m lying on the floor with my lungs not really breathing, my chest movement undetectable. I called you when I was halfway done with all this just to see the look on your face. You’re kneeling over me screaming “Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” as you shakily try to dial 911.

I say, “I’m trying to tell you a story.”

I say, “I’m trying to tell you our story.”

I say, “I’m trying to remember the important parts.”

You’re kneeling over me screaming, “Oh my god oh my god oh my god!”

You’re kneeling over me screaming, “Don’t die on me don’t die on me don’t fucking die on me! I love you!”

And I smile to myself. That’s all I wanted to hear.