Piercing Apathy

I walk in broken streets with broken souls and tourists
wearing happy faces and college sweatshirts. I hate this place.
New Orleans is too damn cold. I close my eyes, but can’t ignore
the memory of tortured screaming souls crying atop floating houses.
It slaps me in the face with undeserved suffering.
I see her crying alone. She wipes Her tears on Her
sleeves and avoids My eyes. She walks fast and determined,
like Me. Her sandy hair is like Mine too. It could hide traces of the
sun if she saw it, if we saw it. We prefer the moon. It does not burn.

She disappears in a crowd of meaningless faces. I hope for her safety, even though
I don’t remember what hope is. The hours escape without letting me grasp them.
I find her in a t-shirt shop. Her gray sweater hangs off her shoulders like Mine.
At home, My despair paralyzes my mother. Here, Her despair paralyzes Me. I want to
die and she is dead. Empathy forces a smile at her. She walks toward me. Her request is small,
but the alcohol she breathes makes my burning stomach turn. I hand her my cell phone.
My fear distracts me from the moment when Her hand and My hand Connect. She
hangs up after no Connection. Vulnerability floods out her pores the way floods
poured out her soul into the ocean. She looks around desperate and scared like Me.

She asks for the time, but looks to her watch. She looks at her left wrist.
I look at her left hand. It’s swollen like an inflated rubber glove, but there is
no doctor to bring her back to life. My heart races in fear for Her, for Me.
My blood turns cold as hatred flows through it. Hatred for the cold world,
hatred for what she has done, but mostly hate for myself, because I know that
immobilizing darkness she lives in. It is blacker than the blood that has broken
inside of her hand. She is hopeless like Me. We are no longer Beautiful.
I am naïve. I do not know heroin like Her and she does not know
heroines like Me. She might have in brighter days, before depression killed her soul.

I try not to imagine her first shot, but see a young girl unable to
cope with a broken heart and broken dreams. Her arm shakes from fear;
she pierces the needle into her skin. She is anxious to fly, even with broken wings.
My mind hurls dark images at me, darker than the blood broken inside her hand.
The blood that hurts for it’s fix, it’s relief. I try not to see her lying lifeless in a
dirty room. When Her weak arm betrays her, she jabs the relief into her thigh. I hate this
place. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to see this. I close my eyes, but can’t help
but see her shaking, sweating, moaning cries of death in a dark alley. It is darker than
the blood that has broken inside her hand from when her veins refused to take that
poison. She stabs relief between each finger. I stare at Her hands. The
hand she pierces with is small, like Mine. I need to vomit like she did last night.
Tangled, sticky hair reminds her of the suffering and tears she does not remember.

I am scared. I Disconnect, Detest, Dehumanize, like People who live in fear.
“I hope it all works out for you,” I say. She smiles a hopeless smile
like the one I have forced too many times. She is genuine, thankful,
and human. I don’t know how to act. I don’t know how to act. I swallow vomit.
It hurts, but I will not let it out. I will not let it out. She is broken and
dead; I am broken and living. How can I pretend not to know her? We are related by
blood; we both bleed red. I know everything, but love her like family.

I pretend not to notice the connection. I laugh when my friend says, “crazy druggie.”
I laugh until I cry, since I can’t cry any other way. I wipe My tears with My sleeves.