Sometimes, things move differently for me.  As I step outside of the regular stream of events and just watch things stream by on fast forward.  Rum and coke to my lips, legs crossed, the sun rising and lowering behind me, the plants twisting towards it, as beautiful women and friends I love duck down and lift babies into the air, and pause.

My glass touches the table as lightly as I can manage.  My eyes turn up.  I look into the gathering darkness of the apartment.  I sit back.  Begin again.

Sometimes things move a little too fast.  The bottle of rum empties without anyone touching it, the dark liquid boiling, shuddering.  My glass empties and fills, the hint of a hand taking it away and returning it, but nothing I can focus on.

This is the song of an addict. But alcohol is not an enemy.  My fight is against prescribed drugs.  The paper-thin, wounded, decaying medicated wall between life and pain.  In the spring, drifting out of my latest pain episode, I kick the relaxants prescribed to bring me out of bed and back into the human world.  I slow down a bit, pull away, dip and drown below the waterline.  I don't miss the drugs, I fear the pain.  This is the thin line of oblivion.  This is the careful whispering.  Will you need them again tonight?  My lovers, my drugs?  Will I wake up at 2am screaming in pain, the electric fire burning through my nerves, my face twitching, my eyes watering, my tongue bitten through and a mouthful of blood?  Will the rush of the train hit me in the morning?  The blast of air from the Metro as it rolls into our station.  There, slow down.  The wind tumbles out of the tunnel, I am forced back, the fire hits, and I turn away, my hands to my face, the pain pushing me against the concrete  wall and, freeze.

Spin around this empty body, this little boy in pain, this terrible affliction.  There it is again.  The pink pill.  The supplement.  Take as needed in addition to the usual cocktail.  Side effects may include dizziness.  Mood change.  Side effects may include falling backward into water.

Can't you hear the thunder?  You'd better run, you'd better take cover.

I remember kissing.  I remember biting into an apple, eating a cheeseburger.  I remember smiling into the wind.  I remember simple days. 

The pain leaves me and the bottle sits there, taunting me.  You cheap whore.  Fifteen dollars, but those are friend prices, yes?  To those masses suffering on the streets you go for $500.  You cheating, vicious creature.  I would die without you.  The pain would take me away.  Dear god, I feel myself sinking into the mattress.  Dear god, I can see this.  I can see the end through this bottle.  Sunday best and memories of youth, the dance into a party, the world at a fair, a dead mother's hand holding mine.  Blink, close those young eyes slowly, turn your young head, look up at her.  Short black hair, dark eyes, pale skin.  Burned beyond recognition.  Consumed by anger.  Close those young eyes slowly.  Take a breath.  Hands across a gravestone, bought cheaply, last minute throwaway regrets. 

The pain comes back.  It always comes back.  But it's not the nerves now.  Will you take me away.  You dusty pink bastards.  May cause dizziness.  Waste my day away.  How many do I need to stop all this?  How many of you will put me to bed?  How many of you will let me sigh and smile in my sleep?  How many to never, again, wake with the pain? 

Train in the distance.  Carries on the air, the Big Dipper above, holding the dreams of all Humanity.  We'll come to you.  On my back, waiting to be picked up, no friends back in the classroom, from sun to moon to stars to sun.  The way a hand feels in mine.  How to describe it?  How to put it into words.  Raise your eyes, boy, look into hers.  Now, no longer mother.  Blue eyes and light brown hair, waiting lips and sharp nose.  Move closer and remember everything, remember the happy time, play and fight.  Two dreamers rolling in bed and the sheets never come between us.  Nothing will come between us.  Not until we do.  This pain that I built. 

Little pink bastards.  There you are again.  How many of you will erase that space between us?  The passage of time.  Do not take with alcohol.

Here, we'll pause.  I want you to look at me through the vodka as I pour it into the glass.  We'll make it a dramatic scene.  We'll put it in the movie.  9pm.  Vodka.  Get off them.  Stop taking them.  The pain fades but my head moves to the left side and I prepare for it to return.  Any minute now.  It starts with a gentle tingle around the ear, it moves to my upper lip on the right side, it tears through my cheek, up along my nose, my eye flinches then closes, a punch in the face makes me lean back and removes me from the world.  Fire takes hold of me and I move upwards, watching my body fall away from me, as white-hot terror takes hold.  Then it fades and I return.  First sound, then sight, then I breathe again.  Less then a second, before the next pulse.  Repeat.  Return.  Pulse.  Then it holds, and I set my jaw, press my neck against my shoulder, clinch my face, peel back my lips, hold my breath, wait for it to pass.  It may be a minute, an hour, three weeks, three months.  It passes and my body relaxes, slowly, decompresses, falls back into itself, leaving only a headache, a dry hollowness.  The pink pills help bring me down from those episodes. Wake when needed.  The neck is first, cracking, snapping, returning to normal.  Slowly, over a few days, the shoulders fall.  Then I start to catch my breath and smile again.  Then the headaches stop.  Then life begins and the speed, running, power.  Freedom.  A hand on the bottle.  1600mg. 

That hand that used to hold mine is dead.  I guess it's a skeleton now.  How we laughed, then.  How we fought then.  A mother's hand,  I can feel that dead flesh pressed against my hand right now.  You little pink bastards.  You're taking me inside, again.  You're taking me away again.  I can't stop it.  I can't stop this mother's corpse.  I can't stop that lover's kiss.  I can't stop that broken bone.  I can't stop that punch to the jaw.  I can't stop those laughs and tears and screams.  All at once.  Again and again until...I wake up.  Sucking air through my mouth.  Morning sun.  No more of you.  No more.

Until next time.  Until the fire builds again.  Until I spin, turn, freeze.

Now let's turn around and rise up.  Away from that boy, above the station, above a Maryland suburb, into the air, the jetliner view, the nameless suburban layout, the square patches, the white clouds, the heavy eyes, the roar of the engine.

Sleep now, dear.