I was never high enough. My body defied odds of survival. A regular EF5 tornado.
He was my treatment center roommate for one afternoon. Dead that same night from an overdose.
Found his cheap cologne and kept it.
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Years ago I worked in a swank department store. Men’s clothes and accessories. Sold crank to a girl in their human resource office. She got me the job.
Went to a vintage consignment shop. Dress for success. Picked up a few suits like in a 1940’s Humphrey Bogart detective picture. Cigarette always dangling from the corner of his mouth.
Black and white movies always with a femme fatale. Shimmering hair. Impossibly beautiful face. Exquisite and delicate shape hinted at by her sexy soft satin dress.
First day on the job at that store I stole a five hundred dollar bottle of men’s cologne.
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That’s how I knew my dead roommate’s cologne was five and dime. Tossed it in a drawer anyway.
A young kid moved into my room. He hooked up with a girl at the center. Asked me if I had any cologne. Sure.
Next morning woke up and he wasn’t there. Story was he overdosed.
Two dead roommates. Everybody in my therapy group called me “Angel of Death.”
A few weeks later a friend went into my drawer without me knowing and sprinkled a few drops on himself.
Slipped in his bathtub and broke his neck.
______
Invented a drink called “Death by Margarita.”
The stolen bottle from the store I lifted should have been called “Caligula.” Right after I started using it I began living with a lethal stripper. I was never high enough. My body defied odds of survival.
Invented a drink called “Death by Margarita.” Shoplifted an easy thirty thousand dollars in men’s threads and accessories. A regular EF5 tornado.
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Now in rehab I own one pair of underwear. Two tee shirts. One pair of gym shorts. Sandals held together by duct tape. Can’t afford deoderant.
Am definitely no detective like Humphrey. Can’t even track down my own sanity.
Girl’s here with clothes covering skin and bone bodies stripped clean by the needle and bottle.
Drink of choice is stale decaf coffee.
Possible collapsed lung and scars on my liver.
Cigarettes I dangle come from the ground and ashtrays.
I was never high enough. My body
