"I don't think I'll do any more cocaine. At least not for a long time,"
It feels good to vocalize a firm choice you have just made. It's like shackling yourself to it, slaving away committedly towards it because otherwise you'll just embarrass yourself in the eyes of the involuntary witness.
"You're such a liar. I love you," says Mimi.
"No, I'm serious! It rots your septum and makes you feel like a wet dog."
"That's why you're quitting?"
"Yes."
There's a silence for a few moments then the explanatory sentence rapidly falls out from my cold lips like a broken string of beads.
"And my mama's forcing me into group addiction therapy,"
"Knew it. She's always up to something,
"Always brewing,"
The summer I first did cocaine was the summer I started starving myself. I told Mimi that and she said "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," and I told her that's not funny. Not because it's offensive or anything, it's just a horrible joke.
I was eleven and it was just before a My Chemical Romance concert, and that's all I am willing to share right now. It might be helpful or even informative to note that I am sober. Not in general, just as I write this. Call me when I'm on something and I'll tell you the whole story.
It feels good to vocalize a firm choice you have just made. You have to commit to it because otherwise you'll just embarrass yourself in the eyes of the involuntary witness. Have I told you that before? Anyway – not anyways – sometimes it's a voluntary witness. But I guess voluntary is the wrong word to use because that suggests the idea that they are wanted or wished for. Witness is wrong as well, because that refers to the action of standing by and viewing. I could've called my mother a voluntary witness, but I'm better at picking words now. I call her a strict enforcer. She's making me do this group therapy thing.
Mimi tells me she feels guilty for being mean to her mother sometimes and when I ask her what she did she says "I rolled my eyes at her," and I think that is so beautiful. I tell my mama she's a bitch and that I'm never going to speak to her again after I move out and she doesn't even flinch.
But I'm trying not to be stubborn. Knowing my mama wants something for me makes me want the total opposite. Instead of fighting that, I've decided to lie to myself.
"It's not just mama– I mean, between you and me, Mimi, I'd go as far as saying she's the last reason on my whole list of reasons–" I stop to take a bite of the raisin cookie that's been rotting in my hand before going on, " –the list which I do have, by the way,"
Mimi raises an eyebrow at me. "Yeah? Can I see the list?"
"No, it's sacred. You of all people should know,"
She giggles.
Cocaine gets me introspective and I'm already introspective enough. It's no good when I think but I'm always thinking even when I try my hardest to stop. My ideas are fermented and their juice would probably be swallowed up by some health coach from New Mexico who's into new-age medicine, or something. When I am sober and in my purest form I think too much and I talk too much and I want to do too much and I desire too much. I am too much, I am too.
