traceyh415

As I look at your reflection, I see the contradiction,  I would love to crawl inside your skin,  But you are so eager to let me in  I grab for you in desperate silence,  Once again,  you seek my forgiveness,  You pull me down like frigid water,  You drain my life and play the martyr. We play house and I pretend, You won't betray me yet again, But I succumb to your advances, Forgetting all the squandered chances. I'm quitting you, yet again. I'm breaking free from agony, My knees are pulled against my chest, You sucked the life out of me. You sucked the life right out of me.

One day back in 1996 or so, four of us got together for lunch. And not long ago, it dawned on me how arrogant the four of us were. One was the maintenance supervisor at a huge apartment complex in a large Ohio city. Another was a foreman at his brother's construction company. One ran the loading dock at a fruit and vegetable wholesaler, and me, I was a hot shot autobody repairman. A pretty tight bunch of characters, Smug and arrogant in our junkiness, each feeling superior in his own right.  Back to the real matter at hand. 17 years ago, I was a heroin user of the 1st degree. Not realizing I had much of a problem, I would rationalize that by telling myself I was doing alright, I even worked 2 jobs (had to pay for it somehow, right?), so how could I have a problem? And in my arrogance, I would look askance at those boosters, hookers, and petty thieves who supported their habits in such ways. I, of course, was better than them. Yeah. A lot of st...

I am sitting on my couch looking at my son playing in front of our Christmas Tree. In general, I do not care that much for the holidays. As a food addict, I appreciate any opportunity to stuff my face with sweets with no fear of public shaming. At Holiday Parties, the people with food issues silently nod to each other as we seek an extra helping of dessert. We recognize one another at buffets. We see the smiles as others are finally eating at our pace and it is glorious! For fifty weeks of the year, we deflect from our secret eating habits with our juicing and our fabulous overpriced salads. Two weeks of a year, we can relax and do what we do best- indulge without stigma and judgement. I have spent every major holiday with the exception of Christmas in jail. I have been arrested on both Christmas Eve (for solicitation) and the day after Christmas (for drugs). December 25 is a day when many addicts are flush with cash or items to trade yet dealers may be closing up shop for the day. I...

I can't take credit for writing this but I wish I would have because I love it. I was written by one of my readers JF. My minds been known to drift in to a pit of the sickness I try to shake it off or find someone to talk but no ones there's to listen So my companions always been me and my addiction Depression and happiness is seperated by the line that I'm sniffin And this ain't no happy chimp that sittin here on my shoulder Its a 800 lbs gorillla and I can no longer control em Can't even remember the last time  I spent a day sober I hit rock bottom and still keep sinkin even lower And I know some that still keep goin..still keep smokin Carpet surfin tryin to find another rock.... as if it was golden Its time to slow my roll,  im runnin outta time I'm already knowing Its either jail or overdosing and id have to rob a bank just to get into a program This can't be the path for my life that was originally chosen Vivid pictures i...

"I'm in love with love so I scatter it in the breeze, until I fall to my knees, wondering why the trail to reason feels like a disease..."  My eyes and blue and my skin is a shade of grey. I hold my fingers against the mirror. The reflection is in a window. I see a skeleton with big eyes and a small smile. I brush my hair behind my ear. I put my hair on backwards. My audience awaits. People want to see me perform. the ups and downs of my routine played out in front of an audience of unsuspecting fools. Can they see that I control them all? Can the see that I blend into any setting and command my universe with a wave of my arm?  I see you wanting to approach me. I am full now. I am so full of drugs my world is on tilt. I am beautiful and I control this corner of the universe. The cars circle the block. Each man is sizing me up to judge my imperfections while he turns on the street. Will this man be the lucky one? Will it be him? They are all so very lucky that ...

Jekyll and Hyde. Just do it.. Its been a while.. A few weeks right?? Maybe a few months? A Year?  Time is up.. Act now he says. Pick up the phone.. DO IT!! Jesus fucking Christ… I don’t want to.. I have told you this a million fucking times now over the last 15 years… Why do you always have to get your way… Can’t we just be Normal for a while longer?? Normal?? HA!! I love how you throw that word around. Like when your two friends overdosed and at their service you told everyone how “normal” you were these days and glad you got off that shit before that was you lying in that box, only to go out a few nights later with that stripper you met. You remember her right??  The one we met at you buddies bachelor party? Why did you start talking to her? Was it her beautiful long hair?  Great body? Perfect ass? Oh no it was none of that.. It was the marks in the ditches of her arms that got your attention. That was a great week. Laying in bed with a beautiful woman dri...

I woke up and brushed the fear out of my eyes. The day ahead was not for the faint of heart. I needed to draw my my courage and step among the broken hearts to find the path to opiated glory. You want to hear the story. I was tiny, I was starving. I was withering away in front of my picked up face. I was barricaded in the room. I was alone in the dirty sheets with the burn hole from the junkies that had passed before me. The ghosts of the overdoses traveled down the halls haunting me as I went to pee in that lonely place no one called home. I looked at my face in the mirror. Then I browsed my neck. Will I stick the needle there? I brushed back my hair. This is all I have left. All my fantasies I can pull up from the bottom of the spoon. There is nothing but the clothes on my back. I take a hit of crack. The world is buzzing now with all my rings and tweaks. The freaks await me down the stairs. I need to get my hustle on. I need to plot and plan and scheme and dream empty bags and ful...

I feel like a purple fucking alien. Standing by the doors on the  7am  Blue line train headed into the city in my grubby jeans and dirty hoodie surrounded by all the early morning commuters in their button down shirts and ties and sensible pant suits. Well dressed slaves, I think. " Cicero is next " the canned pre recorded voice drones over the trains speakers. " Doors open on the left at Cicero". The train squeals to a stop and I elbow my way through all these captains of industry with their sharp little briefcases full of dreams and sales projections. These poor bastards wouldn't step foot off the train here if the fucking thing was on fire. I stumble across the platform and up the escalator to street level. The chills and sniffles are really starting to kick in as a step out of the station and onto the sidewalk. The chilly October wind slaps me in the face and I pull my hoodie up over my head just in time to see a Chicago PD Suburban gliding up to the curb in...

This is a post about desperation. This is a post about rotting flesh. This is a post about the point I got when I was using where I cared so little about my body, I would take a syringe full of blood and hot bacteria laden black tar heroin and shove the syringe through my pants leg and into my skin because I was sick. This is a post about the time when your nose is running and you are dry heaving and no one understand the tears running down your face are because you don't know if you are going to sneeze or use the bathroom on yourself. That is what the post is about- those times. I was never much of a self contained person. I always seem to let me emotions leak where I ever I go in some kind of outburst. There are as many kinds of users as there are starts in the sky. In the course of history, there are have been millions, make a billion users of all types of substances. There is also a unique set of users. That classification falls on the hope to die dope fiend. The hope to die ...

I was walking from the train station. I noticed I was starting to get some type of weird tunnel vision. I felt as if I had a hot flash on the train. I thought to myself for a split second- is this beginning of a panic attack. No, I think maybe I just don't feel well. When I got home, it seemed as if my arms were going numb. I was trying to adjust my breathing so i went to lay down. Everything seemed to be going black. The feeling I was having was as if I was having some sort of medical emergency. I felt as if I was going to pass out. My husband told me to sit down but it was if some kind of electricity was running through my hands and they were shaking and I had to move them. By the time I realized I really was having a panic attack and was not dying, at least twenty minutes had been spent in a terrible state. I went into my purse to get my ativan. It had been so long since I had a panic attack, I was just about to take this old medication out of my purse. My insane thinking- is ...

I am all over the place and I hope you do not mind. To start, it is a not so well kept secrets that eating disorders and drug use go together like sugar and cigarettes. Food was usually the last thing on my mind when I didn't have drugs. When I did have drugs, not only could I EAT whatever I wanted, the only thing I wanted was generally a cinammon roll. The thinner I became, the more compliments I received from observers. "Look at you- Looking good." I remember the first time I put on an outfit that was an "acceptable" size 6! Starvation looked good on me! It was a skin tight black dress. I was walking around the Tenderloin. A man asked me for a quarter. My response "where would I put it?" yeah. It was that tight. Secondly, there is an unspoken paradigm. I want your drugs, you want in my pants. However, that doesn't mean the female user is always up for a trade. It is as if when the drugs enter the blood stream, predators decide you no longe...

I was laying bed last night reflecting on the past few days. I decided I would focus on how different my life is from when I was using drugs. My son is sitting here cuddling with me. He likes to get up in the morning and put his little hands against my face. He has on his Christmas pajamas, the kind with the feet. They are brown with smiling animals like foxes, deer, raccoons, and beaver. I am not sure what these cute, but generally nuisance type animals have to do with Christmas but my son loves them. Some happiness is appreciating things the way they are in the moment. I have been typing this same paragraph for ten minutes because I am holding my son with one arm. He still has his hand on my face. It has been cold in my house so I have been sleeping with my hoodie on at night. Have you ever slept outside? Have you ever slept in an alley, a car, or a park? Even if you are high or drunk, it pretty much sucks to sleep outdoors. If it is cold, you wake up and your hands are like swolle...