UGLY MEMORIES
I'm not the young man I used to be, fueled by anger, drugs, the rush of fame, and the fresh memories of electricity running through my body. The electrocution forced on me at a tender age left me with such strange feelings that I could never really explain to anyone, but that always kept me on the brink of insanity, or something worse...I always felt I was on the brink of something, something bad...something dark with no name, something that scared me. It was as if the electricity had been absorbed by my body and stayed there long after the switches had been turned off, burning its way into the nucleus of my cells and radiating throughout them, burning like embers and silently threatening to leave each one (as well as my mind and soul) a hollow, burning cinder.
I was desperate to do anything to make that feeling go awayand heroin was my solution. The drug became my bodyguard. My new, strong friend that chased away and beat down the bulliesthose awful feelings that taunted me constantly. Those sensations of standing at the edge of a dark, damp hole swirling with bones, blood and deathoh, God, the smell of death. I always felt like I would be shoved into that hole, or just slip and fall into it, or be sucked into it somehow. Terrible, terrible, unspeakable things waited for me inside that hole, and heroin sealed up that nasty hole and allowed me to dance on it, skate across it, like someone dancing on a freshly filled grave that had been covered and sealed up with concrete.
But my new bodyguard was a bully, too, secretly pummeling me and beating me when no one was looking. Left me with bruises, cuts, lacerations, scratches and sometimes near fatal wounds that were inflicted deep inside me. He chased away my fears, but exacted a heavy price of his own. Like a loan shark. I had lived life in the fast lane for so long, and now, my life had slowed down to a pace that allowed me to hear myself think, feel myself breathe, even hear my heart beat softly at particularly quiet times.
I relished those moments when I could lay back, close my eyes, and feel the blood flowing through my veins, and it felt so good to be alive. What a change from my lost youth when the only thing flowing through my veins was the brown liquid that had me in such a desperate grip that there were black moments when, yes, I heard my heart struggling to beat but wondered if each beat would be the last. Listened to my ragged breath, yes, but wondered if each breath would be the last. Listened to my thoughts, but they were the anguished voices in my mind, the cries for help that never made it past my parched lips, and the ugly voices that said vile things to me when I was deep in the throes of an impure high, or worse, of withdrawal. I had to fire the bodyguard, but he would never really be gone. I will spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, running from him.