Picking at your bones

When the humanity has been sucked out of the using experience, you will know what I mean by saying people are willing to pick at your bones.



In the first tier of using hell, there are the straight up predators. These individuals are opportunist parasites looking for a chance to change their fortunes through brute force or deception. There is no easy way to pick them from a crowd. A "friend" may have copped for you 23 times but on the 24th, when you are REALLY sick, that is the moment they walk away never to return. Another creature simply provides you with sub standard product that may or may not make you sick in some way. A third type of predator will simply snatch and grab your money because they can take it. As a junkie, you are at the bottom of the food chain. You may catch up with them. The dope world is vast and very small at the same time. At that moment, you are simply another prey item with just a little less self esteem because you got burned in the game of odds.



In the race to the bottom, we find the type of person who turns a blind eye. They will pass you by while you are laying in the bed sick. They are the type of person who has a pocket full of money but is more than willing to share YOUR drugs. They will finish their own at home. Ring, ring, ring, text , ring. They won't answer your calls. They will let the dealer short you. They will get high with your girlfriend behind your back. You know the one.



Finally I have seen the scavengers pick at the bones. When I lived in the AIDS hotel, I heard stories of a man who was dying on his bed while people were clearing out his things. I have seen a person taken out in handcuffs. Ten minutes later, people were inside tossing their room. I have seen put a crack pipe to the lips of a man in a bed in a diaper- "he had money and he asked me to"- as he sank to less than 100 pounds. I have felt the pain of one hit too many and prayed "God please don't let me fall out. They will go through my shit while I am lying on the floor". Finally, I had a friend die of an asthma attack. I heard about it from someone that was there. She was gasping for air in the dope house for 45 minutes and no one wanted to call the ambulance.



Please don't let die a junkie. Please don't let this hit kill me. Please don't make my family come identify this body. Just let me get high as few moments more.