To my daughters,

I feel like my life is taking a turn. I’m heading down a road I’ve never been on before. Nothing is familiar. The signs don’t make sense. Do I get off the road or keep going? Do I go alone or take others with me? Who do I trust for the journey? I have to remove myself from those whose lives affected by my decisions. Those I love… as well as those I hate. It’s getting more and more difficult to be who I want to be. When my decisions are the ones a mother has to make. By the time you’re old enough to make sense of this life you’ll know everything about me, the things I’m proud of, the things I regret and then you’ll be faced with your own decisions. As much as I want to help you, tell you what to do, those choices will be yours alone. The only advice I can give you,  is to examine who you are as women. Figure out what’s important to you, know yourselves, know what’s in your heart, don’t be swayed by fear or the opinions of others. Find your own truth. It will lead you to the things you love.

I love you to the moon & back.

Mom 

In the Bathroom

We never want to leave our safe haven. The small twelve by eight bathroom has grimy walls and soap scum in the bathtub. Eight people crowd around what now has become their only support. The only thing in their life that makes their problems disappear, and will take them to that non existent place only they can reach. An old homeless man sits in the bathtub, covered in dirt, with gang green on his arm and a band tightly cutting off the circulation, and a needle poised. The only female sits upon the residued sink with a glass mirror and a fifty dollar bill held to her nose. Her eighty nine pound body is so brittle and dark circles swallow her eyes. She's soiled and she's filthy. She's wrenched with grief. Anguish is apparent. How did I let it come to this? I feel so worthless, lost and alone. Yet I still remain in my private abyss, no family, no real friends, and no place to call home except my bathroom. Paraphernalia gets passed around this bathroom in back of the double wide trailer. Paranoid of what lurks outside our sanctuary, we're constantly peering from behind the blinds praying those we fear the most are nowhere near. A strong aroma of gaunge fills the room, leaving a thick cloud to singe everyone's lungs. Binging for days leaves us to believe we really are crazy; too many breathing the air, talking at the same time, and entering their madness into everyone else's brains. Using even more drugs is the only thing that can ensure sanity. Cocaine, Heroine, Morphine; the pain is excruciating yet amazing pleasurable of several minor attractions. We junkies live our life in a hell, we always want to escape. Paranoia takes over and blood shot eyes look to the floor, ashamed. Ashamed of what we have done and what we continue to do. Pale faces cast in blacks of white, unfolding. And their eyes circled in dark black...Looks like licorice. Feelings of being on top of the world when really our world doesn't even exist. Drunk on depression. Drink until you leave, drunk until your sorrows gone. Decisions. The IT builds. Ravenous hunger. Drink it up, swallow it down. Soul how you hurt, poor soul how you hurt. The infatuation drives us slowly away from reality. Addiction leads to a dead end yet we can not turn around. Collection of pain, drugs to the addict is a bitter addiction. You sour the life with narcotics brand on you. Ruin existence so you may breathe in false serenity. Trapped in this life bleeding steadily, stained, bruised and broken, my tears still pour heavily. My craving is strong. I'm growing tired and weak, ignoring the truth. I can't see it. This life I live, am I sane or insane? The darkness gets darker and the fight gets harder. My eyes are sown shut, my wounds deeply cut. Laugh.. as it overcomes you into a lifeless slumber. Sometimes it is only the deepest darkness that you realize there really is light. "Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life. What am I going to do with it?"

I wrote this poem when I was in treatment in Sheridan, Wyoming. I was so alone and felt like nothing was going to help me rid this addiction and use of 6 years. Drug addiction took over my entire life. Being a person that is addicted to drugs, I lost respect for myself and from the ones that I loved. All I was looking forward to was my next high and at the time it didn't matter what I had to do to get the money up to get it. I'm addicted to crack cocaine and it has taken over my entire life. I traded my life for a high. I lost my family, my friends, my education and more more than that, my self respect. I stole from people, i got abusive: verbally, physically and emotionally. There were times I literally counted out pennies to get that drug. The insanity of smoking crack cocaine and doing nothing else but smoking crack cocaine every awake moment of every day is maddening. The relentless desire to smoke crack cocaine at any and all expense no matter what, no matter where, no matter who, now matter how, no matter why, no matter when, was a horrible passion. It is through the passion to smoke crack cocaine that the power of crack cocaine transforms into an evil internal weapon to destroy your life and others. Crack cocaine can only be the devils candy. Nothing else ever made sense or worked to stop my passion to smoke crack cocaine. For me, that is what it is, the devils candy. It is just as it was and will always be just as it is. It will break your mothers heart, sell your daughter and steal from your brother.

The older I get, the more I realize that age doesn't bring wisdom. It only brings weary. I'm not any smarter than I was 10 years ago. I've just grown too tired to juggle the lies and hide the fears. Self-awareness doesn't reveal my indiscretions; exhaustion does.