get me out of here

4:12 in the morning, several short minutes from the time I once loved. Now the time is an annoying reminder of everything that's wrong. Now it's just Hitler's birthday.

So here I sit, listening to the sound of the cat snoring, the computer humming a monotone tune, the clock tick-tock-tick-ad.infinitum, the occasional grunt of a furnace that doesn't want to be up at this hour either. I sip a coffee, barely above lukewarm, coffee that was made almost twelve hours ago, and as a result, tastes like, for lack of a better word, shit.

Coffee and cigarettes are the only drugs I have a tolerance for these days, it seems. Coffee makes the world slightly aggravated but at least everything moves quickly. (I'm just another run-of-the-mill speed addict.) As far as cigarettes go, they are the everything drug. Tastes good with coffee, after a good meal, when you wake up, when you go to bed, when you're stressed, when you're bored, when you breathe.

It bothers me greatly to have a pot-mushroom handicap. These are drugs that, as a rule, bring insight and understanding. So why are they bringing me terror and feelings of looming death? Not to mention that when you're high, a single thought of death can lead you to the very reasonable conclusion that your time will be up at any moment. This is not good. This is a clue. Something's wrong. It's making me fucking crazy. I can't wrap my head around it. And I know the answer is right in front of me, I know it. And when I finally find it, it'll be one of those, 'holy shit, how could I have been so blind and ignorant' moments. I hate those moments. Life can be so damn smug sometimes. Life likes getting a laugh on you.

The last time I chomped some shrooms was one of the first weeks living in the appartment. Maybe that was a contributing factor to the badness that ensued. You see, all was running well at first. Kelley, Mike and I were playing cards, waiting for them to kick in. When they did........there was no hilarity, no laughing without a valid reason to laugh, no feelings of pure happiness. Quite the fucken contrary. The strangest fever spread over me in minutes - the most unpleasant heat - and the shaking. The fucking shaking. My heart was burning, but not with love. (the cheese monkey strikes again.) I had a shower, a temporary relief. Then I stumbled into the bedroom, pushed the window open wide, and pressed my face against the screen, gulping in air as if I had been drowning and at last had reached the surface. I crumbled onto the bed, fetal position, a few strings short of sucking my goddamn thumb. The waves of cold air passed through me, and I shook harder, but it cooled the maddening heat inside of me.

The tears started about then. I stifled them best I could, as Kelley and Mike were in the other room, and I didn't want to rain on the parade. I think Steve had come over. I think they were watching 'The Nightmare Before Christmas.' It didn't matter - they were far away, and I was in my own little gritty space. I cannot explain the way this felt. I wasn't sad. I wasn't joyless. I wasn't terrified. I wasn't, I wasn't, I really wasn't. I was in pain, very real, scary, physical pain and it got to the point where I just wanted to die right then, because that seemed very possible and I didn't want to fight anymore.

Mike came, he comforted me. Pet me, brought me back to a space that felt good. The pain had not stopped but he was the opiate to which I gladly submitted.

A trashed mess, I walked back into the living room [in all it's connotations] and curled up to Mike and the movie. Kelley and Steve were concerned but kind, gently but not pitifully asking how I was, to which I replied, I'm better now, I'll be all right. And they left it, making light commentary on the movie, and smiling, and I smiled and the heat became bearable.

Mike had to go to work shortly after, and though he called in to see if he could ditch his shift, no such luck was dealt to me and the heroin left.

I chilled with Steve and Kelley a while longer, weak but having some fun. They left, but it was all right, the worst of it had passed.

I spent the remaining hours of the evening drifting from room to room, feeling as though this appartment was my brain and each messy area had different information inside.

The kitchen was my favourite that night. I laid on the cold floor and stared up at the ceiling fan, spinning madly, as the world, passing the air around. The fan transformed into a beautiful blue and orange flower, and I watched, I burned it into my head and carry it around to this day.

Kelley had no negative effects that night. I can only partially understand why it was so terrible for me.

Pot works in a subtler way, still unpleasant. It feels as if I'm standing inside a moment of my life - all the scenery and people and all that's real - but outside of the moment, there is nothing but a void, like a little box in the middle of a vast darkness. It feels as though any moment I might fall into that darkness and disappear.

Not to mention the heart, the heart that hurts.

I was aware, I knew what was going on. Then I saw more and discovered that I was in a third-world prison, brainwashed into believing I belonged there. Then I grew afraid, hopeless. Try to feebly escape and those demon-creatures beat me back, harder and harder. Exit seems impossible. This is how it feels. I'm just another one of those little pawns being used and abused by the media, what they've been feeding me with. One of those people I always held in high contempt. I am one of those people. The only difference is, I am aware of it. But I don't want to be. The reality is terrible. I don't want to know what's going on anymore, I want to sleep, I want to dream. I want to convince myself that I'm better than that, that I'm strong enough to evade brainwashing, that the whole prison thing is no more than a paranoid delusion, a daydream as I am sitting in a field with the sun shining, the love blooming, a dark idea that I can stop at whim.

Please, please, I'm begging you, will you free me, will you offer a brilliant escape route, anything, a scrap of a plan, a way, a solution, please. I don't belong here. And once I'm free, I promise that I'll devote my entire life to freeing the rest of those poor bastards, so no one has to live in a cage any longer and we can move again.

The silence is knives...