You know what? That little rat is coming back again. That little rat that scurries around, playing over your adrenaline, nibbling at your bravery. It's fear. It's coming in from all sides, and epidemic. And the world around you is helping it eat you alive.
Just today, I was transfixed by the news, another reality pasted on an electronic black square, messing with my equilibrium. Mr. News Reporter rambled on about a new artificial drug. Yeah, we all need artificial drugs. We all need something to make our lives even more horrid. Even more frightening. Even BETTER, don't you think? Yeah.
There are already murders and suicides that I expected to see in Stephen King's Cell. That poor man... I felt the tingle of his blade as it dug into the flesh of his neck, meeting the wet, red insides, the inflammation tissue that wondered, "Why me?" And there's another family without a son.
"Organic" drugs are enough. My stepfather smokes, first thing he does when he meets the world after a black sleep every morning. I can't lose another father. I lost the first one to a man who was 13. I can't lose another one to lung cancer.
These new drugs, legal for 12 year old to buy, stocked along the Jersey Shore, as Mr. News Reporter said, feed that rat I told you about. That rat that attempts to escape the rushing fear of its own self. The rat that kids itself. Yes, I need this. It makes me feel better. Yet, why do I feel bad to begin with? This takes the work and pain out of dealing with whatever makes me feel like I'm being boiled alive.
I just saw my stepfather come back in from the porch. I can almost feel the tar sticking to his lungs. I can see myself staring at the ceiling, the shadows stirring under the headlights of cars in the midnight, as I remember how two fathers abandoned me.
The most anybody who reads this can do, is what I want you to do. I've drawn skulls and crossbones on my step dad's cigarette packs. So do that. If you're on the gooey path Death's paved for anyone in pain, a lonely soul with a stick in their mouth, then realize that it's all in the brain. And you'll feel a lot better alive than dead, if you just try to be free.
It'll take a while. Just as me. Five years is a long time to struggle with my losses. But it's worth the Heaven and Earth to break free from it. And a cigarette is worth four dollars.