WORDS ONLY GOD CAN HEAR, a memoir

autopsy // 02

act i.
"roses on a short bay bridge"
DATED IN APR. 2020

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. . .

One of the first rules you need to understand in life is simply this: don't ever trust a fucking drug addict. Hell, don't ever trust anyone in general--you'll scrape through life a lot less heartbroken this way--but you should especially hold off on trusting people who fiddle with needles and pills for pleasure.

I say this because I know I am one, and every day I take a little more pride in self-destructing my life for the sake of something that tastes like chalk rather than ecstasy.

Today is no different. Rise and shine at six, get ready for schooling that hardly exists anymore, get in the car, sit back and relax my twitching fingers, race inside the house once we're there, do a page of work, sleep, wake up again, drop a pill, sleep again, wake up, close my workbook, shove it aside, sleep.

This has been my life for the past two months and I cannot get enough of it even though I want to. I think to myself, "Fuck, just go outside and touch grass like every normal person on the planet." But then my eyes flutter shut and the escapism in dreams takes over again.

I am in a waking nightmare I cannot crawl out of.

Worst of all, those same urges are being spoonfed by friends. I can see them laughing already. Tilted heads, quivering bodies, mouths wide open, sounds of amusement jolting out of their system like post-mortem knells. When I close my eyes, it's the only time I can actually escape from the bullshit I've been tolerating for the last, oh, maybe six months? But every second I'm awake, I can hear those guffaws and cackles like it's my life soundtrack.

At least I've made a new acquaintance though. Granted I never really knew she was around this entire time until she actually showed up in my inbox one day, but I'm partial to spontaneity. We've been talking back and forth for a short period of time now--about two weeks--and I've learned three things about her so far:

1. Like me, she is incredibly outspoken and won't hesitate to be honest about certain truths and issues. I need that a hell of a lot more nowadays.

2. She is an artist of the digital breed, meaning she's more likely to have a computerized portrait of someone rather than a canvas. Regardless, I like her work. She's got talent and I've noticed it has been growing fast. Me thinks this will be a good influence for me.

3. She's beautiful even if she says she isn't.

Luckily, I've learned her name quickly; Janine. Janine is, unlike me, fifteen and her family is a lot bigger than mine too. Last time we spoke she mentioned three siblings, but she hardly talks about them on account of being slightly estranged. Okay...

Next, she enjoys the same taste in music, at least to an extent. While I haven't exactly grasped the full scope of what she does and doesn't enjoy, I do know we share common interests in groups like The Smiths, TV Girl and The Drums. She is also a fan of many older groups like Jodeci and Bell Biv DeVoe, but I haven't really gotten around to asking what tracks she likes specifically. These findings still make me happy--I mean, for one, it's hard to find someone who will go for anything that isn't one hundred percent hip-hop or one hundred percent rock. And since both are dominating mall radios and grocery store intercoms, it can only mean one thing.

She's cultured, and I like that too.

Scanning her for any kind of inauthenticity is sort of like scanning a body for foul play in an autopsy; I can't quite dissect her unless I dig deeper. While Janine and I do get along, there's a certain hesitancy about her. It's specifically when I bring up Marcia.