the world’s gone grey
During my time as a Creative Writing major at UCR, I created a small portfolio of works that I planned to send out for publishing. After changing my major and revisiting that portfolio three years later, it’s safe to say that it is still far from finished and can be revised into something better.
Fortunately, there was one piece that I wrote that stands well on its own, and I’ve presented it to you here.
trigger warnings: drug overdose, discussion of suicide/suicide ideation
Sometimes I think about the day that I ran so far and so fast that I thought my lungs were going to burst.
I felt like I was going to bleed out all over that clay red track in front of my entire PE period, sputtering for air, fish-out-of-water style. I think a death like that would’ve been better than the one I’m facing now.
I guess I should’ve known that overdosing was a high stakes catch in the game I decided to play. High schoolers joke about cocaine a lot. My teachers always told me I was an overachiever, destined for great things. I make jokes about cocaine. I got addicted to it. I even overdosed on it.
You could almost laugh; a year ago I swore up and down and side to side that I’d never touch any sort of drug. Even if my eyes are rolling back into my skull like bingo balls in a crank machine, I’m glad I dropped the “holier than thou” act. The stick that was jammed so far up my ass got replaced by the needle the nurse shoved into my arm.
I wouldn’t have even snorted that first line if the world hadn’t changed.
At least, for me it did. Everyone else carried on like everything was normal because to them, it was.
In a world as busy as ours, who has time to worry about the people on the sidelines? Who the hell wants to sit there and try to sharpen the signal of a static radio station, fiddling with the dial futilely in blind hope it’ll come in clearly?
One day I woke up, and I was someone on the sideline. I was a static radio station. How did I know that? Easy.
The world had gone grey. There was no color in it. There was no beauty. There was nothing worth living for and even less to be thankful for. I wonder if people could see my downward spiral. It’s not like I wanted their attention but it put my life into perspective.
Suddenly, it didn’t even matter whether there was color in the world or not. In fifty years, my life wouldn’t even matter. It’s not like it mattered to me now.
But I could create my own coloring book with drugs. I could create the pictures, the colors, the shading. Everything I needed was in the next hit, the next line, the next shot.
I wish I could tell you that my limp body on a hospital bed, with organs that are failing and pushing me seconds closer to meeting my Maker, changes the way I think.
In reality, it doesn’t.
Ma’s clinging to me like saran wrap, crying her heart out like she wouldn’t have smacked me for telling her I was depressed. It’s all bullshit. Who the hell wants a broken child?
I’m sure her red lipstick is smeared across the arm she’s holding like a lifeline, like she’s trying to figure out a way to brand a part of herself into me for the next life. It doesn’t matter. It all looks and feels like blood.
I can hear the doctor’s clogs thumping frantically, a local hero trying to save poor old me so that I can continue to live this mediocre-at-best life. That’s also bullshit. He wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t in his paycheck.
My heartbeat is about to flatline in a few seconds, and that’ll be the end of that.
In the unfortunate event that Doc-the-Hero pulls some miraculous Hail Mary bullshit, I can promise you that this won’t be the last time that I’m on this bed, hooked up to all sorts of tubes, stuffed with needles. But since he won’t, I’ll see you later if you decide to join me. There’s no grey where I’m going.
