The Simple Things

I was smoking weed, huffing gas, taking acid, shrooms, morning glory, crystal meth, all by the time I was fifteen. I’d been high for so long it had become fused with who I was. I knew little else.

I floated down the street in a haze of memories, awash in emotions. I was angry. I was sad. I felt hopeless. I was a void. 

Yet, somewhere within all of that negativity I knew a spark of light remained. An ember of hope burning inside of me, waiting for the right moment to erupt into a full-blown blaze. I just had to embrace it, nurture it, but it was so hard. This intangible fear so pervasive, so all encompassing, so real a force as was any other in nature. Like the force of gravity or the power of the sun, it was unavoidable.

And it had hold of me. 

Fear surrounded everything I did. Everything I was. I was fear and fear was me. One and the same. Blood brothers. The drugs, the alcohol, the gas muted it down to a low barely audible murmur. No matter how hard I tried to escape the fear, it would always be there.