"Black Hole, Fire In My Veins"

​

Skin…a blistering inferno of fire,
crawling with a thousand mites.
Digging, itching, hungry for a fix,
Stuck…no coin to buy what I need tonight.

​

Every minute, every second, a lifetime,
cold sweats coming on…I am so cold.
Dry mouth and throat, parched as hell,
spit, broken glass tasting like black mold.

​

I’m shivering, shaking, fists in a ball,
legs cramping…I’m in painful free fall.
So tight, so much pain…it won’t stop,
incessant, constant jerking,
every fiber and bone screaming for a hit.

​

My head reeling…it’s a war zone,
shouting, loud voices cutting like knives,
slicing and dicing, cutting raw meat.
Tears flowing, begging to get high again,
But my spoon is empty…I ain’t got shit.

​

I would crawl through putrid, stinking crud, and that’s not the half of it…the low part, the part that doesn’t wash off.
My chest feels like a steel hammer,
crushing my ribs like they’re made of glass.

​

And my mind? That’s the worst part…
fucking gone!
Shit ain’t right, twisted like a sailor’s knot,
trying to suffocate me, plastic bag over head.

​

My whole life flashing…a kaleidoscope of horror.
No light, no anything, blacker than night,
I hear a trumpet…a siren song singing,
dragging me deeper with every painful breath.

​

Every second without heroin
feels as if I’m drowning
in a sewer of wastewater and shit.
I just can’t catch my breath… no air.
What is it like to breathe easy?

 

Stuck,  no coin, pockets totally bare.
It twists and claws…no spit.
When did I last suck in sweet air?
I cannot remember.

​

Without that spike in my arm,
and the relief,  instant, a velvet blanket,
Now all I know is pain and agony.
Shit…I’m running on empty.

​

Hollowed out, rusted, a broken pipe.
I used to feel something.
Now it’s an abscess, a screaming toothache, sharp and raw, bleeding inside and out.

​

My heart, squashed, tearing apart
my whole ravaged body fights with itself,
burning up with pent-in rage, twitching,
jerking…like I’m fucking possessed.

​

Too cold… the chills cut to the quick,
cold like ice, eating what’s left.
Let me warn you… there is no escape,
which kind of chill will eat you alive?

​

Nowhere to run from this mess I made
the past is history, only the here and now.
All I have left is a raging hunger,
a hunger that can’t be satisfied,
my thirst for the poppy endless till dead.

​

The gnawing comes from every angle,
hunting me down like a dog…like it knows
just how weak and vulnerable I am.

​

And damn, the shame…like a lead weight,
an anchor that sits heavy on my chest.
The weight makes it so hard to breathe,
I’m just too gone to shake it, can’t get it off.

​

Just a lost and condemned, damned addict, lost in the streets, a hollow man,
craving opiate nectar, no way back,
swallowed in a black hole in the night.

​

-Peter