right after i wrote that last entry, i went to c's apartment and crawled in bed with him, shivering. he said, "i'm in so much pain. all my joints hurt. let's go get some dope." the same feeling ran down my spine that always does when he says that. "no, we can't. if we don't quit now, when are we ever going to stop?" "we'll quit," he said, "don't worry."
we lay there for a long time, every so often groaning about something. i couldn't get comfortable and i couldn't sleep because i'd been sleeping all day. the worst part, though, was the heavy hopeless feeling in my brain that i couldn't shake. dull soul pain, not sharp despair, just deadness and no way out. we speculated on whether we would feel worse, how long it would take. we decided to go out and get a movie.
while we were putting on our shoes i gave up. i said, "i can't stand this. do you want to get some dope?" "yeah," he said. we got in the car and didn't talk. it feels so good to give in. the comforting familiar routine. we don't go under the burnside bridge anymore, we finally got a steady connection. the only bad part is that it's way out in the middle of nowhere by 160th and stark. out where the trees tower above the tiny run down shacks and there are white trash strip malls and greasy restaurants, and the old pine trees stand 6 times as tall as the little wet houses.
the nice thing about dope is that as soon as you decide to get some you feel better. my heart lifted a little during the long impatient car ride. i thought, i can't believe this is happening. this isn't supposed to happen to me. i think this is point of no return number 2.
i watched all the portland trees go by in the rain, so heartbreakingly beautiful. i personally apologized to each tree that its loveliness wasn't enough for me anymore.
i'm sorry you aren't enough.
i'm sorry you aren't enough.
i'm sorry you aren't enough.
i'm sorry you aren't enough.
i'm also sorry to each person who told me this was going to happen and i tried to convince them that it wouldn't. i've never been so wrong. but knowing the way i am, i probably couldn't have avoided it my whole life, it would have happened sooner or later. some things i just have to go through on my own in order to believe them. now it's just a matter of getting out.
our new plan to get clean is to get out of this city. as soon as my papers are done on may 15th, we're taking off for utah, for hot springs and desert and c's old friends that we can stay with. where we can't do dope because there isn't any. i have hope for that.
but oh my god, i feel so much better right now, and that's all that matters.
i love you.