Hearing a rapid, repetitive beat, I try and calm my breath and figure out where it’s coming from. With a hard, dry swallow, I try and focus on slowing my heartbeat and measuring its rhythm, but all I am able to hear is the Hollywood-fabricated sound of the readying of a syringe full of drugs. My heartbeat quickens again as the motion of time slows. Tap… tap… tap… The syringe in my hand is empty. No one has any drugs, yet the tapping against one’s palm remains fluttering behind my closed eyes. My heartbeat quickens yet again.
The tapping of the syringe is full of my husband’s drugs – tapping against his palm, circa 2012. I don’t even know what drugs look like. Not in real life, anyway. My eyes remain closed as I try and steady my body, but I feel myself sway. A hand suddenly places itself on my thigh, and I simply catch my breath that I was unaware of holding. The hand that braces my body no longer has heroin flowing through the veins it embodies, but as its fingertips press into my thigh, I see them press the plunger of the syringe down slowly, and I jump, my eyes snapping open. I want to throw the syringe into the roaring fire he lit just moments ago, to watch it melt, to watch the junkie that it represents become nothing more than a few drips of plastic on an old, rusted, fireplace grate, but I cannot.
I cannot let this escape my grasp – the symbol of recklessness and danger, the symbol of overdose and death, the symbol of me losing all that I love – because what if with it, escapes everything I am trying to prevent from slipping away from me.
chasing clarity 