In my room I want you here

Now we're gonna be face-to-face

And I'll lay right down in my favorite place " The Stooges 1969

The Stooges pound in the back of my mind. There are days when my life seems like it has a soundtrack that loops over and over. It is hard being a fuck up. At least I am a fuck up with a series of theme songs.

Love among junkies is a hard. I cannot say romance is still alive just because you share syringes. That seems to be a sign that two people are truly a couple. It isn't enough to swap sex fluids. You have to share your blood. Somehow that couple seems more hardcore even though they are more foolish. Sharing needles is a matter of convenience, not a matter of affection. It takes two minutes less to get those drugs inside of you when every moment counts.

My first boyfriend was a red haired punk rocker with a chain pad locked around his neck. I had lost 50 pounds between my junior and senior year of high school. Suddenly, I became interesting to boys. By this point, I was going insane with loneliness. I was a cutter. I used to cry over the shitty way other kids treatment me and slice up my arms. Then, one day I heard music. The music spoke to how I felt. The music told me fuck what everyone thinks. I believed it. Fuck what everyone thinks. If you hate me, fine. I already fucking hate myself. I might as well enjoy my life. I went deeper and deeper into the world of the living with my sunglasses on and no fucks to give. He was part of that world.

When I met him, I never gave him a second thought. He was one of those guys that drank until he got puke on his boots. Someone had to help him home. That wasn't for me.

He kissed me on a dare. He didn't even really like me. Everyone knew me as that uptight virgin bitch. So, someone dared him to kiss me.It was a hot night in downtown Cincinnati. Everyone was in the city that night for the fireworks. Kids knew they had 3-4 hour tops to drink and sober back up before their parents picked them up. I was waiting patiently for my friend to take me on the long ride back to the suburbs I was so confused by him. I had only kissed a few other boys. Why did this person like me? I had no idea. I felt his kiss the whole way home.

It felt good to be wanted by someone. No one had every really wanted me. They might have wanted to get into my pants but they didn't want ME. They wanted parts of me. He told me he wanted to get to know me. I had never really shared my thoughts with anyone.

He got drunk one night and called me.

"Tracey" he said "I got something to show you."

We would stay up until midnight talking on the phone until one or the other fell asleep.

"What is it?" I asked.

He was very coy "It's a surprise!"

We only got to see each other on the weekends. When I saw him I wanted to know- what was it?

He pulled up his pants leg. He had used a straight razor to carve

"Tracey, I wanna be your dog " on his leg. I knew I loved him then. He showed me that love is pain.

In reality, heroin was my first great love. It gets inside your heart. It inhabits every part of your body. When it leaves, it leaves you longing. That boy fucked me over, of course, as all boys seemed to do. He wanted to get fucked up with his friends. I wanted to go to school. We hooked up a few more times. I found him to be an embarrassment. Like how could I have ever been with such a fucking mess? Until I became one.

One night, I was sitting in my room with blood streaming down my arm from pulling the needle out the wrong way. I had been digging in my arm trying to get the very last of a beat cotton. I was sitting next to my boyfriend. He was in klonopin cruise control so he didn't notice me then. I was using a chain necklace to tie off my arm. A drop of blood hit my foot and I heard a song playing in my head.

"So messed up, I want you here...In my room I want you here...Now were gonna be face-to-face...And I'll lay right down in out favorite place..."

I thought about what it was like to be with the freckle faced kid when I was young. I missed my innocence. I missed that time when I still believed love was a mystery. My life was just a bunch of junkie cliches with no end is sight.

The guy in this story ended up commiting suicide over drugs and legal issues. RIP.



