MEDS
Alone in this room which has suddenly become too big, I can't exactly figure out what I'm doing.
My head seems to be empty and a moment later it fills up with everything I don't want to think about.
My breathing is labored, my hands tremble.
I can't even look for comfort in my guitar…
Reality hits me like a punch in the stomach, throwing me once again into that abyss that I have visited too often recently.
A free fall, which ends with an ineluctable crash.
I'm looking for the man I was, the brilliant guitarist, the boy who grew up with his own strength and who built his own future by himself day after day.
I'm looking for the best of me.
But it seems to be nowhere.
Life taught me how to live free and without too many ambitions, but in the end I forgot the lesson.
I forgot the secret of happiness.
I wish I could remember at least everything else.
What happened to me?
How did I get to this point?
What happened to us, to that love which had saved us both and that now seems to want to kill us?
"Those who laugh at love, will die for love" ...
Only now do I realize how right that baldy was.
Love cages you, makes you a slave eager for freedom, for oxygen to relive that oppression from your chest.
But people don't belong together, human beings are born and die alone.
So why I can't let you go, Nana?
Why do I desire you more and more?
If I watch our love slipping away, carried by the wind and currents of the sea, I feel even worse than knowing that I'm chained to you for the rest of my life.
Not even the drug is enough to fill this feeling of emptiness that sucks my bowels.
I open the French window and go out to the balcony, from which you can enjoy the view of the street below.
I need some air.
The chatter of people crowding the street, too busy with the frenzy of everyday life to stop and reflect, reaches my ears like an annoying hum.
I'm confused, everything seems to rumble in my head.
Sometimes I feel so distant from reality, like a hero who lives in the imaginary world that everyone dreams of.
Actually the heroes live under the same spotlight that dazzles their flatterers.
Someone raises their heads and recognizes me, little girls who indicate to me by talking and chuckling among themselves, adult women who sigh wondering why they are not a few years younger.
Their faces are confused, their words distorted.
I forget faces, names, sensations, sounds and senses.
Heroes save other people, but they can't be saved.
None of them will be able to erase this feeling of failure that is consuming me slowly, making me crack like the strings of an old guitar which has been played too many times.
What good is the fame if you're meant to die all alone?
Why do humans desperately chase the world of success, sacrificing everything else?
Why can't we see the darkness hidden behind that blinding light?
I'm tired of being observed, everything irritates me.
I take a few steps to get back into the apartment, but my legs don't want to support me.
I fall to my knees just in front of the French window, clenching my fists.
I need a dose.
I spread a line on the living room table and then sniff it quickly.
I'm like a diseased who cannot help taking his medicines.
I lie to everyone saying that I can quit whenever I want, but in fact I've become a slave to it.
Nana, Trapnest, the drug.
Wherever I turn, there is something that oppresses me.
I lie on the floor, waiting for the heroine to take effect.
Maybe it will erase the pain for a moment, like an apparent illusion.
Ten, twenty, thirty minutes.
Finally the drug takes effect.
The shaking subside, my hands are able to play again.
In this moment, however, I don't think any melody would come out.
Nothing flows out of an empty body, a bleeding heart produces only pain.
I can finally find the strength to get up, dragging myself like a ghost near the window.
Even if it is late winter outside, here in Tokyo the snow seems to not want to fall.
The landscape is always the same, invaded by smog and illuminated by artificial lights.
It's in these moments that I remember the old apartment that was once a warehouse, the house that I built and in which I intend to return one day with you.
By now I would no longer be able to live there alone, it has become our love nest, that corner that feels like a family.
It's the only place that can truly call home.
I miss that little, I miss that snow which fell silently covering everything under its blanket.
They are the only things that aren't erased even when the drug obscures my senses.
On the street two teenagers, probably sweethearts, are chasing each other laughing and then catching each other.
And here the road becomes a snow-covered breakwater, where a girl of barely sixteen years old, apparently already a woman, throws snowballs at a boy slightly older than her who shields himself with an arm.
She wears provocative clothes, a short spotted fur coat to protect her from the cold.
He, wrapped in his inseparable black leather jacket, tries to smoke the umpteenth cigarette of the day in peace.
The euphoria of the concert they just did with their band still flows through their veins, a real success.
But there is more behind appearances.
The boy and the girl love each other, they will confess it to each other shortly thereafter.
Do you remember, Nana?
That night was one of the most beautiful for me.
I didn't care if my days as a womanizer were over, I had found something that was worth much more than a fleeting night of sex.
For the first time in my life, it seemed to me that I had managed to grab that happiness I've always craved.
And then, one day, that promise.
"Ren ... if I died, would you die with me?"
Even today my answer to that question is always the same.
"I would".
Yet I don't feel like dragging you into this abyss with me, the desire to protect you is stronger.
I'm the only one who can save you from your loneliness.
And I?
Who can save me from mine?
The sachet with that white powder that allows me to survive is still open on the table.
It doesn't matter that I hide it, you are no longer here.
This house has become empty, like the man who lives there.
And I persist in not wanting to see you, despite Hachi's constant calls.
It's not because I'm mad at you, nor because I don't love you anymore.
I just can't pick you up yet, not in this state.
What could I tell you?
That I can't take care of you because I'm not able to take care of myself?
It would be humiliating.
I don't want to disappoint you too, you who are the person I care more about than anyone else.
I want the day when we will meet again to be perfect, I want to be able to make love with you again and to know you're peaceful by my side.
I want to go back to that snowy night when we chained our lives together.
All this is not yet possible, at least not today.
I still need my "medicines".
I slip with my back against the wall, sitting on the ground with my legs bent and spread.
I look like a puppet abandoned in a decayed theater that will no longer perform any show.
I lack the strength to be a hero, I lack the strength to fight.
I miss you, Nana.
You are the best of me.
And I can't forget this.
AUTHOR'S CORNER
This is an old fanfiction I've originally written in Italian in 2015 and recently I decided to translate.
It's a song fic about Ren Honjo and his drug addiction. Since many songs of Placebo that I love have the topic of drug as theme, mixed with the loss of oneself and the pain, I decided to use "Meds" (taken from the homonymous album) for this fanfiction.
Thanks to everyone who will read and leave a comment to this story!
