30 mg

ad • dic • tion (n.)

Drugs and alcohol have developed a negative connotation to the word “addiction”.
They say, now, that “addiction” refers to an unhealthy attachment to an object, a habit, a person. It is characterized by an unwillingness to change -- an inertia-like quality of the human psyche.

But it used to hold a completely different meaning all together.

In Latin, the word “addict” originates from the verb “addicere”, which meant “to be assigned”.
The old English definition translates “addict” into someone who is “bound”.
And at one time, it meant “devoted”.

Devoted to what, exactly, is another story.

It’s always another story.




“There’s a reason that things like this just don’t work out.”

“I know, Cara. I know.”
“It’s illegal. You’re gonna get caught.”

She breathes, swallows. Her words sound so hollow beside the phone receiver.

“It’s not illegal. It’s prescription.”
“A prescription that wasn’t filled out for you.”

In the sickly sweet warmth radiating up from the rickity house’s water heater, Noah huddles in the whitewash-walled room beneath a floral comforter and pretends that she isn’t dying, silently, from the way her mouth watered and her limbs shook.

“You’re going to kill yourself.”
“It can’t kill you.”
“Ever hear of chronic use?”

Cara doesn’t know.
She doesn’t understand.
No matter how many times she explains, no matter how many failed attempts, Cara will never understand.

“Good night, Cara.”

The click of the phone is too loud and she jumps -- the plastic, the floor, her voice, all crack and skitter on the gleaming remainder of what isn’t left.





Ten milligrams.
That’s all.
The letters are barely visible against the translucent blue capsule, the salts for extended release shivering within, like maracca beads. Or her bones. Her immediate thought, from hard-earned (hard-won) experience, is that it’s not enough. Reflexively she pops the small pill into her mouth and downs the disgusting warm water from the bottle in her fingertips. She doesn’t want to take any expensive chances -- if it gets stuck in her throat, then it’s gone. Wasted.

Wasted? She’d never get wasted. The stench of alcohol claws upwards, gouging ladder rungs into her throat.
She’d never get wasted.

Wasted, waste it. Wasting?
She’s wasting away, and she knows it.

Swallow, breathe.
Die.
Wake up.

She doesn’t want to wake up. She wants relief.

“There’s nothing else?” she asks. It takes fifteen, twenty minutes to kick in, she knows, though the transition is flawless. She knows all of this because she is an expert, not an addict.
“No,” he tells her. “Sorry, hun.”
The man doesn’t know her name, and she doesn’t know his. Maybe it’s better this way. Her stomach doesn’t protest to being empty, because her mind knows that there’s something more important there. She can feel the hollow acid eating away at whatever is left at her but it’s still satisfying. Somewhere, a god who doesn’t believe in color sighs, and the world slides into vibrant contrast.

“Thanks.”

Her body turns to leave, but her spirit lingers. Barely five minutes have passed, and already the menagerie of pulsations are ebbing away into nothing, like her -- she knew it wasn’t enough.

Ten milligrams.
Only ten.





Fifteen milligrams.
She’s still in control.

Swallow, breathe.
Die.
Wake up.

Still no relief.

She studies languages, not numbers. The symbols are too foreign to concentrate on.
But failure is not an option.
Her pencil scratches on paper, too confident for her shaking hands and imperfectly perfect skin. Other than the occasional twitch, no one would ever know. They would never know because she had been oh so careful today; oh so careful to make sure to waitwaitwait for just the right time, so it wouldn’t be wasted.

Wasted, waste it. Little by little --
-- still no relief. It’s all wasted.

And she’s still wasting away.

In the corner of her eye, Cara’s figure sitting at a desk two seats down, three seats across (rise over run is slope m). At first she thinks that Cara will say something, but she doesn’t. Her own words wither on her dusty lips.

Fifteen milligrams.
Next week, she knows there will be more. But she’s still in control.

She knows this because she is an expert, not an addict.





More shouting, more crying. It’s normal, now.
It’s normal, them telling her that she is a failure.
The little plastic bottle is empty. Her mind’s telling her that it shouldn’t be.
When she doesn’t know what to do, when her eyes are dusky red puffs and her shoulders ache from bobbing up and down on rough seas of the tears that never stop, she calls Cara. There is no other option.

“Noah, please.”
She’s not listening, but that doesn’t stop Cara from trying.
“I’ll go to the police. I’ll give them your number.”

“No you won’t.”

She has nothing to swallow but spit, today. Somehow, she still manages to breathe.
Die.
Wake up.

If she waits long enough, relief will come. It has to. She cannot accept one more failure.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Cara. Don’t hurt, don’t worry. I’m still in control.”

(I promise you.)





Twenty milligrams.
Noah hasn’t seen Cara in three days, now. Or was it four?

But she hasn’t felt this good since the first time. The change is hardly anything; she doesn’t know that it’s working until she’s been through one whole class without sleeping. The sun-risen daze leaves her excited, confused, (un)certain of the surreality of the situation. So much yet so little is left to hold her together like the finest thread, the sharpest needle.

(I don’t want a lot.)

Her parents’ words don’t pulsate in her head, don’t sear something awful.

(Just some rest.)

She’s not crying, inside or out.

(Just some clean, beautiful silence.)

But there’s still no relief.
Not yet.

(Some clean, beautiful peace.)

Just failure.





She skips twenty-five and goes straight to thirty.
Thirty milligrams.

She is sure that this isn’t an overdose. She would never overdose. She is still in control.

Things are so clear, now.

She can see every detail etched into the twitching fingers, the shine in her hair.
She can see the lines of the lockers, each person in the swarm that envelopes her.
She can see how Jacob notices Hannah, how her social sciences professor is cheating on his wife.

The constant rail of stimuli is too much; doll feet stumble brokenly into the bathroom, long legs in knots. Every crack along the tiled wall glares and Noah is suddenly aware that she is aware and loses it: her mind, her self.

And all of a sudden,
she can see herself.
So clearly.

Fumbling fingers, fumbling heart. The plastic bottle has never been so difficult to open -- capsules skitter across the floor like cracked plastic, her voice, her senses, her reflection. Everything, in drought and excess. The

e n t r o p y

leaves her almost breathless as her nails scratch against the floor in a desperate, not-so-blind search for another thirty milligrams of captured clarity.

Another thirty milligrams to catch the disease.
Thirty milligrams to make it stop.

She thinks of Cara, briefly, and the cracks deepen. She doesn't know why.

Thirty milligrams to swallow, breathe.
Thirty milligrams to die.
To wake up.

She’s still in control. She isn’t a failure just yet. She knows this; she just needs to wake up --

Wake up like she usually does, but never wants to. Wake up from the sleepless nights, the nerve-shattering paranoia, the thirty milligrams. Only thirty milligrams.

Still in control, she insists.


She just needs to wake up.




Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
(Forty milligrams.)
Failure.
Failure.
(Have patience.)
Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
(Fifty milligrams.)
Failure.
Failure.
(Sixty.)
Failure.
(Seventy.)
Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
Failure.
(Seventy-five -- )





Relief.









(I am in control of this.
It is not a disease,

and I am not addicted.)