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Showing posts from October, 2015

Poem by Martha Frankel

WHAT YOU WEAR TO BURY YOUR SON, AFTER HIS HEROIN OVERDOSE You want to cloak yourself in your fury, but its too sharp Like wind on the beach against a bad sunburn So instead your first layer is the toddler he was, Grape jelly smeared across his smiling face Blonde hair sticky and damp His grandma laughing beside him You scream his name And remember him as A Mutant Turtle, A Pirate, Batman A sword always at the ready You hold onto that, breathing in the smell of him The sharpness, before that other smell, that smell of decay, of deceit That sword, how you wish he could've used it You’re still seething but next you add on the boy he was on the field All sinew and charm and goofiness You’ve forgotten that he was once goofy! Before the lying, before the stealing, before his mother grabbed him from behind and wouldn’t let go, screaming into the night Before the lying Before the stealing That boy, in his dirt-stained uniform You wrap yourself in that You add a layer of grace, for the time

The Overdose

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"Do you know where you are?"  I hear a disembodied voice. Are they talking to me. I feel a sting on my face, some heat. My legs feel heavy. They are numb. I feel a heaviness, like I am trapped inside my body. I am dreaming. Dreaming about football, on a tiny screen. Like that hand held game I used to play as a kid. I see the green on the field. Is this an I formation? My vision is off, like I am heading up a tunnel. I see football at the bottom.    As I scan the room, I feel a sting again.  "Tracey...Tracey wake up..." I grab my face to stop the pain. Then, I feel the weight of someone on top of me. I feel my shoulders being shaken. That slap again. Then a face. I see a familiar face.  "Why are you slapping me?!" I ask, grabbing my cheek indignantly. I feel the pressure against my legs again. That pressure is coming from the floor, my friend is over me. His legs have pinned my legs to the floor. Why am I on the floor? I see the glass above my face. I reach

Red Ribbon Week Reflections

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It is red ribbon week at my kids' school, a time when I always feel generally uncomfortable with both the past and the future. For those who are unfamiliar, Red Ribbon week is when the schools try to find catchy ways to get school children to pledge to stay off drugs. I cringe when my children come home with red ribbons or discuss how they are doing "crazy hair" for red ribbon week. Is this really the best way to keep my kids off drugs? When I was my daughter's age, I had already smoked pot. This was at seven and eight years old. I had already seen my father falling down drunk numerous times. I had seen older people in my life under the influence of drugs. I am from the beginning of the DARE generation where we were told drugs were bad. No one ever explained to us WHY or what drugs actually did to young bodies. We were also told sex was something married people do and HIV is God's righteous wrath for being a sinner. Except, I already had seen people on drugs, pe

Bonjour Rue 89 readers

je vous remercie beaucoup pour la lecture de mon blog . mon français est pas très bon . aimer Tracey 

Radio Forum On I participated in on the state of Opioid use in the US

The link is Here

Pedicure and Cats

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In this picture are two of my favorite things- my fresh pedicure and my cat. I was reflecting today on how much my life has changed. I was sitting in the spa chair at the nail place. As I was getting my legs rubbed with salt scrub, I was thinking "This feels better than heroin." Maybe, that is an exaggeration but at that moment, having a leg massage certainly felt better than heroin. Plus, here it is hours later. I'm not scheming on how I'm going to get another one in a few hours. Let's be honest, my legs are fucked. You can't inject heroin into your legs 6-8 times a day for years and come out of that unscathed. In addition to that, street level Black Tar Heroin id full of garbage. When I first started going to 12 step meetings through the rehab, my stomach used to get super upset. It took me about a month to figure out why. It was that cheap coffee smell. It was the same smell of cooking up heroin filled to the brim with instant coffee. "The best par

The tail that wags the dog

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Heroin had me searching all over for things I would never find. The truth was right in front of me. Like the blood that poured over my skin when I pulled out the needle, I just missed that point. I loved drugs. Loved them. Did I mention I fucking LOVED them? Heroin, amphetamines, MDMA, LSD, benzos, cocaine. My love for all of you made me insane. I'd be searching the Tenderloin with no shoes on. Walking barefoot over broken crack pipes I thought Jesus called my name. I'd see Satan at the Civic Center smoking rocks, Charlie Manson was at the corner. He was a guerrilla pimp on a bicycle. The chicks were sucking dicks in vans Strange men found then on their lunch hours. What was my life? Just hand to mouth to bag to vein to pleasure then pain. Until I did it again. And again. And again. You were everything I loved and hated. That syrupy substance that promised me release. I cast all my burdens upon the poppy. The promise of relief was too powerful. I didn't

Broken Toys

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"Do you always play with those broken toys?" he asked me. I nervously took a drink of my chocolate Quik. The breakfast of champions- a cinnamon roll, a Nestle Quik, and a fat shot. I had two of those three things this morning. "what do you mean?" I asked. He pivoted towards me for effect. "Those men you play around with girl" he spun around in his chair "you better be using condoms." I laughed to myself. Condoms? When was the last time I had a period. Six months? Eight months? I lost count. It isn't like I am having sex anyway. Sex to me is having someone lightly scratch my back. Sex to me is coming back to my room and having him say "look babe, I saved this for you." That hasn't happened. In a world full of seven billion people, I gravitate towards a few people who are absolutely no good for me. The fact that I am a drug addict in the present tense doesn't make life any easier. Relationships between users seem to fa

Story I contributed to for Vice

I would love to get everyone's thoughts on this story here