Making My Own Mess

In my life, I have lived in rooms made out of tarps, rooms full of cat shit, lived in places that got regularly raided by cops, where Mexican drug dealers slept on pillows of cocaine in order to keep it safe. I am definitely not bragging about how tough I am or where I’ve been, I am merely trying to gauge my current situation in all of this. I have always had some kind of partner through all of this. But I think the thing that helped me get through the chaos was all the drugs and alcohol I was ingesting.

I only did sleepy drugs (alcohol, heroin, benzos, etc.). No coke or crack or anything like that. I would do anything to be asleep through that misery. I can never understand people that live in total shitholes with other disgusting pieces of shit that are addicted to meth or something and don’t sleep for weeks at a time. Why would you want to be awake through that? I mean if you’re famous and you have a lot of money, and a pool and stuff, I guess I can understand prolonging things. I still stick to this decree--doing only downers--only now all the downers I do are legal, at least for me, and only for me.

Time was I used to have sheets on my bed. Now I notice that I do have one sheet, which has been bunched up into the corner of my bed for the past week. I wish I could gain the energy to put my sheet on, because I eat in my bed so much there is food debris in it and also coins that get stuck to my back. When I get up in the morning it sounds like someone dumping out a change purse because of all of the change falling onto the floor.

My father is really old and has emphysema and broken discs in his back and all kinds of ailments. I looked in his room last week, and his bed was perfectly made. It was so nice, it looked untouched. I asked him if he ever sleeps in his room, because he’s always in this recliner next to which he has set up shelving for all his drugs, breathing supplies--even a coffee warmer with his coffee cup on it--but he replies that he slept in his room last night and the night before, he just makes the bed every day. It struck me at that point that people do make their beds. I always found that so pointless because you’re just going to get into it and mess it up anyways. But I guess it looks nice.

When I do wake up, which is at some ungodly late hour usually, the first thing I wake up to is the big empty can of cashews sitting next to me. And then I see the various empty bottles of Gatorade and Orange Crush next to me. At many times in my life there was a person there. I often didn’t like that person, but now it is empty bottles of shit.

Wasn’t I supposed to grow out of this phase in college or something?

Well I wasn’t exactly the typical college student. While my classmates were binge drinking and dancing on tables, I was poking needles in my arm and falling over tables. But, shit, I still got through collage with a solid B-average. It’s not like people don’t know that there’s something wrong with you, but when you’re in art school that makes you “eccentric” and therefore acceptable. Or that’s what happened to me, at least.

I keep thinking I’m going to give up soon. Not give up and kill myself, but lose all motivation for anything whatsoever. Still, I keep subtly pushing myself. I use drugs that sedate me, but they’re all prescribed. Not that that makes them any better for me, I just find it funny that I’m able to support a big drug habit and have it all be legal. And I look like Bill Gates compared to my goddamned roommates.

I have roommates that steal from me and others to support their own habits. I have roommates who get drunk and rant about saving the children in the neighborhood, while dismissing all of their parents as spics and niggers. Since I was seventeen I’ve lived in about eleven places, with about fifty different people. They are all funny for their own reasons. But they make me fucking sick when I’m living with them; only upon separation do I start to appreciate them. Not all, but some.

But I just sit and look at my room and realize that I have given up on this room and I wonder what other areas of my life I have given up on. But it’s hard to have a place with a perfectly clean room when the room is so small, and you have so much stuff, and the rest of the house is a shithole. I guess I could start by making my bed. But it’s so inane.

People ask me if they can come over a lot. I cannot ever let them do it. They say things like, “Oh my house is messy, it doesn’t bother me.” And the few times I have believed that line, when they enter where I live they are obviously disturbed, and rarely come back. If they really like me, they continue to contact me by telephone and never come back again. The only one that comes back is this guy I used to live with who stays with this man who is three times his age “for free” but he actually has to do all these sex favors for him, so he comes over for refuge.

The neighborhood I live in is littered with drug dealers, and it reminds me of when I used to come down here everyday to get my drugs. It would be so convenient for me to go back to using the heroin, but this substitute is a beautiful thing. For me at least. I know I’m just sucking the same milk from a different tit, but for some reason, I don’t care. I have come home many times to friends lying unconscious in my house from overdoses, so I shoot them with Naloxone, and it wakes them right up. It happens so often that it’s an almost immediate reaction for me. But luckily, it’s the only reason I don’t have stacks of dead-friends trading cards.

I’m still getting used to not being in school. I was in there for so fucking long. I thought something major would happen after. I was going to move. But I did not because I got a job offer here. I should have just bolted like I wanted to. Maybe. Who knows. Everything started out and it seemed so easy. But now it has been about ten years of self abuse and I’m still stuck in it one way or the other, but like I said I feel like I’m supposed to be concerned, but I’m not. I’m more concerned about the state of my room.

School was always so safe because I was doing something everyone approved of. Now I have a bunch of jobs, all that are satisfying, but none of them are office jobs or more importantly jobs with benefits. I recently had to have my teeth overhauled, because I had about twenty cavities (thanks to the drugs), and my mother paid for my teeth to get fixed. It was the very first thing she has paid for in years, and it was nice of her to fix them, but the guilt will not stop. That is my mother though. She offers to pay for something only to pour on the guilt. I realize this is all over the place, like a diary entry. I just want to stop waking up with change stuck to me and stop looking over and seeing bottles all over my bed.