What Would You Do For A Fix?

 

And she asked me
“What would you do for a fix?”

I thought for a few moments.

I was this kind of addict.

For a fix
I would steal from my mother’s purse
For a fix
I would take my sister’s coin collection
For a fix
I would desert my children
For a fix
I would spend years in prison
For a fix
I would risk hepatitis
For a fix
I would shoot toilet water
For a fix
I would draw up puddle water on the street
For a fix
I would steal from my relatives and friends
For a fix
I would break into places to steal
For a fix
I would drive a car with no brakes
crash into other cars and injure people
For a fix
I would drive hundreds of miles every day
on bad roads
in blizzard conditions
For a fix
I would slide into an oncoming car in
a snowstorm
bounce it into a parked car
then see the dope man up the street
leave the accident scene to get the
dope
and then stop nearby to shoot it
while the police closed in
For a fix
I would steal my parent’s car
For a fix
I would spend the rent money
For a fix I would spend the money meant
to feed my family
For a fix
I would fuck old men up the ass
For a fix
I would sleep with people that I did
not care for
For a fix
I would take the money out of the pocket
of an unconscious man on the street
For a fix
I would sell dangerous drugs to novices
For a fix
I would break a promise to you
For a fix
I would tell you anything
and I did.

When my dog was killed
I got high
When my girlfriend had an abortion
I got high
When I went to a movie
I got high
When the sun was shining
I got high
When it rained
I got high
When it snowed
I got high
When I went to prison
I got high
When I was set free
I got high
When my wife left
I got high
When I fell in love again
I got high
When she said,”If you ever get high
again, I’ll leave.”
I got high
When she left
I got high
When the probation officer said, “If you come
up dirty
on your urine test, you’ll go back to prison,”
I got high
When I went back to prison for a dirty urine
I got high
When it was time to go to school
I got high
When I was kicked out of school
I got high
When I felt sad
I got high
When I was happy
I got high
When I couldn’t tell you how I felt
I got high
When I didn’t want to get high
I got high
When I got married
I got high
When I moved to the country to get away
from drugs
I got high
When I moved back to the city so I could get drugs
I got high
When I found out that I was losing entire days
in memory
I got high
When I remembered what it was that I had
done while I was high
I got high.

In the beginning I got high because I liked it.
In the end I got high because it was all I had
left.
In the beginning I got high because I could fuck
For hours.
In the end I got high because I could not fuck
at all.
In the beginning I got high with my friends.
In the end I got high alone.
In the beginning I got high so I could dance.
In the end I got high and thought I would
never dance again.
In the beginning it was dancing dreams on the
walls of my mind.
In the end the rooms were dark and lonely; the
dreams were dead.
In the beginning I thought I had found a better
way of life.
In the end I got high and had no life at all.
In the beginning I got high because I was searching
for the way.
In the end I got high because I was searching
for the way out.
In the beginning I got high because I wanted to
open up.
In the end I got high because I wanted to
shut down.
In the beginning I would get high to get closer
to you.
In the end I was afraid of you and you wanted
nothing to do with me.

In the end it was like this.
If I was to approach the devil to sell my soul
for a fix,
(I would have done this had I known how)
old Lucifer would have laughed at me and said,
“How can you sell me what you have already
lost to heroin?”

I am convinced of this.
If Lucifer was to shoot heroin
he would trade all the provinces of hell for
one more fix.

I won’t get hooked.
I can stop anytime I want to.
This will be the last time.
God, if you get me out of this I’ll never do it
again.
I promise.
No, no, this time I really mean it.
Honest.

“What would you do for a fix?” she asked.
I looked at her, smiled and said,”For a fix-
I would do anything.”

Reprinted from Spare Change, Boston / Reprinted from Real Change, Seattle.

In this gripping collection, Heroin’s Harbour, Goldfinger offers us an intimate look at the world of drug addiction, as the “body, soul, and mind [are] interlocked in heroin hypnosis.” Told in three parts, as the protagonist descends into the deeper grip of addiction, he wonders “what decision was it…that made it too late to turn back.” The euphoria of the high is followed by a cascade of loss, betrayal, jail, armed robbery, near death experiences, broken relationships, terrifying bouts of withdrawal, arrest warrants, drug dealing, and death of loved ones. Even when he vows to quit, he is haunted by his addiction as he describes “the junk called to me and it knew my name” and falls back into the “dance with the poison dust of incoherent dreams.” As the drugs, like reptiles, slither into the corners of his mind, he knows that even after years of being clean, he will never be totally free. Click the book cover on the left if your are intresting in buying… THANKS