heroin recollections

and she made her way to heroin harbor with her belt on and her spoon burnt black, the handle hot to the touch. her head found the sand and her mind swam through dreams and stories, some real and some just make believe. she remembered her first love with a finger in-between her legs for the first time and how she bled while she was staring at white walls that were sparsely decorated with pictures of dolphins, ripped out of magazines and one that was taken by her at the maryland aquarium in the inner harbor. she remembered descending the spiral walkway and feeling the stares of the bull sharks, unrelenting. and grabbing her father's hand and she remembered how her hand only could wrap itself around his pointer finger. she remembered the rain and remembered how her father ushered her under his umbrella and how he called her darling.

she backstroked to a party after prom into cassie's room with poker cards and chips glowing and lighting up the floor and a pack of matches. she lit one and dropped it on the carpet. it went out almost immediately. she got impatient and lit one and then leaned the flame into the entire match packet and the dropped the packet and match onto the carpet. a flame grew on the carpet forming the shape of a rose and grew ever hotter and then into a shade of pink, the same color as her corsage. she watched and watched until her forehead beaded with sweat and the paint on the walls started bubbling off and the drywall evolved from grey to black. she opened the front door and met a fire fighter for a brief second as he ran by into cassie's burning house and continued down the steps onto the sidewalk and then stumbled into the grass.

she awoke in a yellow submarine without fanfare and without anyone onboard. the controls were drawn with crooked lines. there were two that seemed to her of major importance. on was DESCENT. the other she couldn't read. she thought that the artist didn't go into enough detail with that one. just scribbled something illegible. but she believed it to be ASCENT. she grabbed the lever and cranked it up. the submarine rose and started turning a shade of pink. she thought the sounds of the ascent were beautiful and started humming the melody of HELP. then the submarine rattled violently and began a rapid descent. at that point she just said fuck it and laid back into a conveniently drawn up bed and stared at the rivets and the bolts that held the yellow pressure bomb together. as she stared up to what she believed the ceiling of the submarine to be, speakers appeared or more better put, they were drawn just that second when she looked. the sound of the song came over the speakers in the submarine, faintly, "HELP, I NEED SOMEBODY. HELP, NOT JUST ANYBODY. HELP, YOU KNOW I NEED SOMEONE. HEEEEEEEELLLLLPPPP!"

the song ended and the singing stopped. she watched the in flight movie. sleepless in seattle, yet there were sub-titles in a foreign language, and even then she could barely read them. they were french subtitles. the movie encapsulated many desires that every woman dreamed of. she watched that movie millions of times. she was on the empire state building with the boy and then she was in his bookbag. she heard the reunion, muffled through nylon, zippered up and tucked away. she felt the descent of the elevator and heard, "CUT," but the sounds of kissing didn't stop.

she was on top of her second love and he was tearing into her and it hurt her in-between the legs and she was getting tired and felt like it was going nowhere and that she wanted more than anything to go to sleep, but the red light on the camera on the desk next to the bed, next to the computer was pulsating and she remembered that they were recording. so she cracked a hollywood smile and whimpered like a schoolgirl and it hurt. it really hurt and she grinded her teeth and her tongue became raw and she felt like she couldn't breathe and she saw black, but right before black she saw a hand around her neck but couldn't see whose hand but she swore that it was her dad's. but then there was complete darkness.

RING. RING. RING. the telephone rand and she folded down the covers and she was fifteen again. shed didn't answer her phone. she immediately got out of her bed and went to her window and drew her blinds. she knew that it was her last chance to see fireworks. they bloomed like a cheap sparkler. they were so far away from her bedroom window, but the last burst was amazing. even from miles away it glowed like a beacon begging her to remember when it was simpler. her mom called for her and told her that it was the fourth of july and that her dad was doing her favorite on the grill, ancho chile rubbed steak and her mom was doing homemade mashed potato with butter and chive. she walked into the backyard and knew that the fireworks were over but still hoping that the finale would continue into an encore and lo and behold, the finale encored. this time in the backyard that was coffee colored, she was not alone and not under the covers, but exposed to anyone and anything that wanted to swallow her.

she felt lips on her neck, then teeth and she looked up at the eyes, the brightest green. she was staring at the pine barrens from the fire tower, the evergreens growing like daggers from the sugar sand stabbing the sky. she was stoned but felt the clearest that she'd been forever. it was morning and her shoes still were marked with dew and her toes were wonderfully cold and she could feel th wind passing through her. and this time when she looked from two hundred feet to the ground she didn't feel like she would wet her pants like the first time and she didn't feel panicked but felt like she could float the whole way down, riding the thermals of this and immediately probe the fine granules of sand with her toes, sifting the individual pellets over her nails and embracing the shudder of a chalk squeak on chalkboard it would produce. and while she would rub the sand against her evergrow; she would be thankful for the serenity. but she was atop of the tower, sitting on the top step believing in nothing. under her breath, she thanked her mother for loving her, hugging her, bandaging her when thing cut, mending her clothes and her heart when anything tore through them, for kissing her dad even when both knew it was an act, the most sexless and fake act possible, and for always telling her father that she loved him and she never would stop and how on anniversaries she would buy herself a present to show her friends how wonderful her husband was and how she told her that somebody would break her heart and maybe even more than once and that she should never get married, but that she still loved her husband and that she was the exception, that she was the exception to the broken heart rule and she told her that her father was her one and only even when after a fight, she would come as a silhouette against her door frame and cry. and then, with a roll of her shoulder, as if she was shrugging off a compliment, she left the firmness of the steps and stepped off the side of the fire tower.

she awoke on the beach and it was moving and it was morning. there was sand under her bra, rubbing her skin raw and there was even some in her crotch, probably from rolling around. the belt was still attached to her bicep, just above her elbow. her shoes and jeans were gone, but she wasn't embarrassed to walk back to her car, just thankful that she remembered where it was. she left the needle behind, back on the beach and hoped that in the immediate future that no one would step on it or even worse, reuse it. she turned the car heater on and remembered the feeling of warmth and put the car into drive and left.