Neon Letters

I sat in my room, my nose dripping blood onto my cedar desk. My palms rested on the wood, and my skin was as pale as starlight. In front of me lay a small thin point syringe. I had bought it a few days before. It was filled with diluted fentanyl. I stared at it with longing eyes. My gaze cut holes in the desk, lasering down cedar and sending fumes billowing from the wood. The syringe was filled with narcotic lifeblood. My escape to Neverland was always preluded by this stare off. Me vs. it. Like two cowboys staring each other down before taking steps and pulling their revolvers. My breath was deep and exaggerated. My room was dimly lit by a small LED table lamp, making everything white and ghastly. My hands shaking, I reached out towards the syringe. It was cold between my fingers, and I could see a sliver of my reflection in the needle. My warped face stared back at me, twisted like a starry night poltergeist. I held the syringe vertically and flicked the needle. A lonely drop spigotted down its side. I laid my arm out against the desk. I felt Deja Vu sweep over me. I had been here a million times, and I was back to visit. That needle seemed to be my only benefactor. The only thing I could trust to always be there. 

I set it down and tied a rubber tourniquet around my forearm. My veins popped like thin calcitic highways. I could feel them pump tight blood to my hands. I grabbed the syringe and put the tip onto the fattest highway I could see. I pressed the solution into myself, cracking the flesh concrete and creating a skin deep pothole. It was cold and sent analgesic shivers through my entire body. In seconds, I felt a comforting warmth engulf me. Almost as if I were wrapped in a motherly cot, swaddled by narcotic strokes of my hair. I felt my breath slow and my heart go almost completely quiet. I laid back and stared at my popcorn ceiling. Everything was calm and wonderful and perfect. As it circulated through my body, I was relieved of everything that had plagued me. The drug erased my problems. It erased my real life and replaced it with a plastic, perfect one. No thoughts crossed my mind. Soon, I felt my eyes droop into my eye sockets, and I was lulled into a sleep. Everything became dark. 

My dreams were horrific. I was plagued by drooling lepers and chased by my greatest fears. Monsters limped towards me, leaving red footprints behind them. Green drool fell from their lips and slowly fell to the floor. Everything was slow and steady. Saliva fell from chapped lips like marmalade. Footsteps were like those of shackled prisoners. Ghosts wafted through the air slowly, as if oxygen had turned to sap. 

My heart beat fast, and the hair on my arms stood up and danced. My hands trembled. My eyes twitched. I felt like my veins were going to burst and paint the world red. I couldn’t stop shaking.  Then it all disappeared. The nightmare went black. My eyelids half opened, and I woke up.  I saw that syringe laying on the floor. I grabbed a hand mirror that had been sitting on my desk in front of me. I was the ugliest mother fucker alive. My skin was thin as tissue paper, and you could see blue veins lining my face. They mapped out paths around my eyes and my nose and my palette. Streams of red fell from my nostrils like strokes of a thin brush. Palor clouds were my cheeks. My jaw was loose and swung beneath my mouth like a pendulum. I looked down and that tourniquet was there. My forearm had turned lilac and pulsed with purple cruor. The rest of my arm was as pale as my face. I threw down the mirror. 

My thoughts were scattered around my head like playing cards. I tried to pick them up and rearrange them. Over and over, I failed. The only thing that I managed to gather was that I had to leave. I had to leave that one bedroom apartment. I had to breathe fresh air. I had to escape that dark cave that I lived in. And so I shakily got up, supporting myself along the edge of my desk, and I hobbled to the front door. I looked behind me for a moment at the dimly lit desk that I had spent so many nights numb at. It was ghastly, engulfed by haggerty shadows, scattered with dirty syringes and aquamarine tourniquets. Empty pill bottles were splayed all across the room. Each bore a different name. The air was disgusting. The whole place was disgusting. I was disgusting. I turned the bronze door handle and left. 

I lived on the first floor, so as soon as I came out of my apartment, I was engulfed by autumn air. My eyes were blurry, my skin was damp with sweat, blood dribbled down my lavender arm, and my clothes were brown schmattes. But I could breathe. Good Lord! I could Breathe. I walked the cobble stone path out of my complex, passing crumbling arboretums, browning trees, and a blue tiled pool. I was barefoot, and the stone floor battered and dilapidated my toes. I kept walking. I could barely see in front of me, but I didn’t care. My veins still pumped narcotic panacea, and my lungs still breathed fresh air. Even if I wanted to stop walking, such a thought couldn’t have even crossed my mind. I was on a journey to anywhere except where I was. 

I came out onto the highway. The cars were impressionist chariots passing by. Wind hit my face as they sped past. Their brays were smooth, and their spurs slid across concrete. On the other side of the street was a glowing shopping complex. I began walking across the road. Stallions rushed by me, sending my hair all around. My eyes still hung like lackadaisical sunflowers. I slowly crossed, my feet gripping the cool concrete. I stepped. Right. Left. Right. Left. The cars honked and honked. I paid them no mind. I simply looked down at my feet, counting my steps. People rubbernecked from their rolled down car windows and screamed at me. Their words fell on drowned ears. I felt like I was underwater, floating across the highway. After a while, I reached the other side and stepped onto the sidewalk. I walked through the grass area surrounding the parking lot. As I did, I felt my eyes become heavy. Heavy as drooping water balloons. Heavy as cubicle paper weights. Heavy as dumbbells. The heavier my eyes became, the more my body sagged. First, my back. Then my hips. Then my knees. Then I stood on my knee caps like a sinner at the foot of a cathedral, and I fell face first onto the grass. I was unconscious before my cheek slapped the ground. 

When I passed out, it was early dusk, and my body was bathed in icarus red. When I woke up, it was early morning, and I could hear birds singing. Their chirps were wonderful symphonies. As I gathered myself. I focused only on their songs. The sun shined above me, and I lay beneath a green oak, half silhouetted and half doused in sunlight. I laid there for a moment and just felt my lungs heave. I heard my breath. I heard the birds. I heard my pumping heart. Slow as an old man gets into an armchair, I got to my knees. My eyes were blurry with sleep, and my muscles ached. I rubbed my pupils and forced my eyelids to fully open. After a moment, that blurriness had dissolved, and I could see. 

I looked upon that shopping complex and admired the sandstone outlets. There were Chinese food restaurants, family-owned laundromats, and dimly-lit gothic dance studios. A collection of bronze jilapis populated the parking lot, dripping oil and billowing smoke. My eyes swiped over the complex a few times before I saw it. Nestled in the corner between a restaurant and a vacant lot were two huge neon letters. An N and an A. They shined like beautiful stars in an obsidian galaxy. Below the letters was a sign that said “Club 404: Narcotics Anonymous”. It was a small lot with a single draped window. I walked to its front, my knees buckling with every step, and I opened the door.