Come Away From It
Lyrics to Ani's Song...
Once a Junkie...
i was sitting in bed or maybe i was already sleeping. i don't really remember to tell you the truth. it was a couple years ago and it was may. warm out. i remember that because i had my window open wide. but it still feels like such a long time ago, so maybe everything isn't as clear as if i had written it down then. but it was may. i can tell you that much.
the phone rang and i answered it to hear his voice. i really did love him so much back then... we had broken up a few weeks earlier. i don't know what happened, still don't, but he was gone for days and finally i got a phone call from memphis. he told me that i didn't make him happy anymore, but that was before tonight. before tonight, but to the same effect.
the phone rang and i answered to hear his voice. "they took my money and aren't back," he said.
"hmmm?" i gutted, waking from my warm half-sleep, "who?"
"i don't know. i don't know her. but i gave her a lot of money. i gave her hundreds of dollars."
he startled me awake. i knew what he meant, and it had nothing to do with the money. he'd been clean since we were together, but i knew what he meant. once a junkie, always a junkie. i heard cars passing him on the street. from his phone booth of anticipation, he picked me to call. he picked me. he picked me when he knew i'd be the angry woman he didn't want. he picked me when he knew he had already ripped my heart until it was nothing.
"leave, you stupid sonofabitch. leave. don't fucking wait for her. forget the money. leave. what's wrong with you?" i was so angry. i was so mad. i became a junkyard dog, growling and snarling. screaming, "leave!" but he was calm, aside from standing at the edge of sober. he was smooth, there was just a ripple of anxiousness like a fudge swirl in vanilla ice cream.
he'd already spent the money and he told me he needed it. he needed it...how...crazy... he needed it. i heard more tires on the pavement surrounding his telephone call. i heard his drunk cousin tripping over a curb.
he told me what meth was like once. he said something like,
first it eats through your energy
next right through your fat
then it drives into your muscle
but it keeps you awake
it keeps you awake
when you have music to make
or words to write
or thoughts to snare
it keeps you aware
and when i say aware
i mean alert
and when i say alert
i mean paranoid
but you don't sleep
for whatever reasons
you just keep and keep
she came back with his shit. i still don't know what he bought that night, don't care, but she came back. i was screaming, the walls in my house were pounding, and through my open window, the neighborhood heard me cursing him and the skinny woman and the baggies he was buying, the whole damn sky. but it didn't matter, because, once a junkie, always a junkie.
we moved in together a couple months later. probably not my finest hour, my smartest decision, but i didn't want to give him up. when you get so used to being held and holding someone up, it becomes thoughtless habit, sweetly familiar. so maybe i'm an addict too, but to his drug of skin and bone, dreaming and angry words.
he said he was clean again, and i think he was. at first. aside from the long, late talks i received, detailing what coke, heroin, meth, pills, pills, pills, pot, speed, acid, drugs i don't remember.... besides the long talks i got about what they did to you, i never even thought about it. i never worried about it. not really. not right away. i trusted him, the fool i am.
but then at night, he'd slip onto the bed, uneasy, eerily aware. and he'd prop himself up and switch the blinds with his thumb until he saw headlights pull up and he'd slip back away. and after he left, through the window, i'd see tail lights of some car taking him away. some car better than ours. soon his eyes melted with hate, twisted with the paranoid. nervous. and he started getting dangerous again. he started making threats. his hollow filled with rage.
when he was younger, before i knew him, when he was just an angry teenager with a guitar, i'm told he was a small town drug god. he dealt and did everything and her cousin. and then he stopped, somewhere close to the time his skinny self found me. but never really. once a junkie, always a junkie. right, i mean, that's what they say. he always sat on the edge, ready to plunge back in. ready to soak himself in the foul flavor.
and i miss him. i left him, everything, but of course really, he left me first. and i miss him. once a junkie, always a junkie.
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