you Joseph Burgess, for standing by me through my very worst and very best times.
Thank you Dr. Sanjay Gupta, for your kindness and humility, and for allowing me to get my story out to other addicts in need of help.
Thank you Matt Sloane, for your friendship, support, and trust throughout this entire process.
Thank you Mike Ruiz, for your incredible talent, kindness, and support. Thank you Scott Marrs, for your friendship and inspirational spiritual talks.
Thank you Jeff Lund, for the friendship and spiritual support.
Thank you Matt Tanzer, for your friendship, patience, and understanding throughout some of my darkest moments.
Thank you Mark Lund, for your friendship and teaching me how to network.
Thank you to Cirque du Soleil and the “Totemites,” whose support, dedication, and strength have allowed me to follow my dreams and never give up.
Thank you Nancy Schenck, Eliza Tutellier, and Arnold Gosewhich, for handling my story and words with such grace, dignity, and love. Thank you for allowing me to have my many meltdowns.
And thank you to my family: Mom, Dad, Tricia, Jenn, and Michael, for loving me when I could not love myself.
Nobody could see it, could they? The people passing by . . . could they see what was happening to me? I stood on a New York City sidewalk with my eyes shut, asleep, dead, lifeless, but not falling over as the cigarette fell from my lips. Could they see him? I wondered. Could they see how behind me the Devil propped me up, like a doll, like a puppet, both claws under my armpits while my head slumped forward, my lips white, skin greenish pale, and the dark circles under my eyes like tiny moons from the City of the Dead? He wouldn’t let go of me. I would fall asleep, and nod out, but never fall over.
Anyone who has walked around the streets of any major city has surely witnessed this before, this amazing inhuman balance of the departed: the “junkie’s nod,” frozen in time, about to fall, but miraculously, we continue to stand. It’s an adagio I perfected over the years. Nobody knows that while we junkies stand there, fading into the nothingness, the Devil holds us close to his lips, close to his skin smelling of burnt cinnamon and ash, as he melodically whispers in our ears, “Come to me, my love; I’ve got you forever and ever; I will devour your soul.” It’s the only voice we can hear above all the others as we stand there like a limp flower about to decay. Once you hear his voice, you will never have a good night’s sleep, or enjoy food or any other earthly thing you once took for granted, because pleasure has a new meaning, and there is only one thing that can bring it. Even if you do manage to sleep, you will only dream of him, night after night, endlessly searching for a way out, wishing you had never known of this luxury, known of this existence, and you awaken only to repeat the nightmare again.
This dance is endless, and this is what it looks like to be locked in between the margins of life and death. Once the Devil hugs you in this way you can never return, and you only learn of his deception once it’s too late. If we could at least fall to the ground, it would mean that he has released his grip, waking us up—but we never wake up. We float in slow motion, hovering over ourselves in bodies that were once beautiful and drug-free. The Devil wants to keep us alive as long as he can, devouring our hearts, destroying everything and everyone we ever loved, because this is what addiction looks like. It’s a one-sided romance with death, but death only comes for day visits and never brings its finality. The Reaper has a truce with the Devil, and can only come once he has taken all the light and love from us. Here is the worst part: I love him and he loves me, and this is my happiness.
“I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize
it does
she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop getting bombarded by spit balls
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog
to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
