October 19, 2003

My Name is Emma

The first craving hits me, a mirror of cigarette smoke. This is the easier one, my hands barely trembling, the first course in a meal of shakes. I look forward to the nausea. I deserve it, long for its vengeance, wish it were the end of a bad dream. I'd wake up and not really be a murderer, an addict, my family's disaster.

The hard jail bench posing as a bed is a cold welcome. The grayness matches my blood. I was scared of the rose petal curtains, the bright white walls of my sister's house. They taunted me, "You'll never have us, never be one of us." I retorted, tried to believe I was better than the drug that held me together, that I could bend back its grabbing fingers, make it cringe, drop to the ground. I was winning that self-defense battle for awhile, until today.

I decided to look my attacker in the face, saw my own green eyes. It wasn't the heroin after me at all. My own hands were wrapped around my soul, and the sweet silk was what kept me from noticing. I drop the hand I'm resisting, run back to the numbing needle.

My sister doesn't know, asks me to watch baby Charlotte. She leaves to buy milk and Huggies. I swim in my honey, roll my eyes in sugar. A loud wail interrupts my transcendence. A baby is in pain. Her eyes squeezed shut, face cherry. What is it, what's wrong? The words can't escape my tongue, stick to my teeth. The noise won't stop grinding, knifing my skull. The hurt is coming from her mouth. I can see it, red, red, red. I want to make her feel fine, taste my honey. I grab my needle, stab her lip. Charlotte, Charlotte. The sweet milk enters her. The crying won't stop. Stop, stop, stop, STOP! I stab the empty needle again, again, again, again, until I can't hear anything.

In the quiet I try to glue my hair to the wall to keep the floor in its rightful place.

by E. M. Soos

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