Track Marks and Mug Shots by Krista Day

Track Marks and Mug Shots

Krista Day

The graffiti on the cement walls that surround me pay homage to my fellow social deviants . My accommodations are minimal and I know their blueprints like the back of my hand . Concrete and steel; hard and unforgiving . Metal doors and razor wire fences offer society protection from the misguided and misunderstood . The air is stale and rancid. Thick with the derelict aroma of sweat and tears, blood and fears . The chemically addicted years seeping through their pores . What the socially obedient find deplorable and disgusting, I find a distorted sense of comfortability in . I glance at my arms to assess my self-inflicted damage. Bruised and bloody my arms are a crime scene . A testament to the reoccurring theme in my life . Track marks and mug shots . My veins hide my secrets, my pain. The me I’ll never let you see . Mug shots mark my time . The proof of my existence since I stopped living a long time ago . My thoughts drift to my mom and the dreaded phone call that awaits. How many times has she held her breath and believed that I was done? How many times has she prayed to God to give her back her daughter? Barely coherent I hear my name being called. Echoing off the walls of my tomb it’s a slithery whisper in my ear. With what little strength I have I follow the voice that has summoned me . I instinctively know what comes next. Criminally addictive rites of passage . My passively suicidal love affair with heroin consumed 15 years of my life . Being a professional junkie wasn’t a part of my plans .

If a picture can tell a thousand words my mug shot only says one: JUNKIE. The girl staring back at me is vaguely familiar. A shadow of the me I remember . Circles under my eyes almost as dark as the bruises on my arms . My face a ghostly white. The angles and shadows created by my protruding cheek bones give my face and eerie “living dead girl” appearance. When was the last time I ate, I ask myself as I run my fingers along my collarbone, then down my ribs counting as I go? And a shower? Judging by the chaotic state of my hair, the vile smell of sweat, dirty streets and back alley’s covering me it’s been a few days. Maybe a week. Time

had become irrelevant . Degradation and dereliction had become my normal . I had lost the capacity to be human . I survived on an animalistic level. Always on the hunt . Blind to any dangers that surrounded me. The need is what drives you. Consumes you. And there’s always the need. You obsess the need. It’s in every part of your sacrilegious pilgrimage where you’ll sell your body and trade your soul just to not be you for a few hours. The craving for your fix is like a fire beneath your skin. There’s a seductive gravitational pull you in feel in every inch of your body and you can think of nothing else but the task at hand: scoring heroin regardless of the physical toll that will be reaped upon your body. It’s merely an occupational hazard of the desperately destitute and the wickedly addicted. You’re at the mercy of a drug more powerful of your valiantly pathetic attempts at self-preservation . Heroin has you hitting your knees for all the wrong reasons . Degraded and demoralized, your body has become your deal ticket paying for your next high. You’re a slave to the needle . Addicted to the ritual as much as the score . Your mind screaming, “NO”, your body craving more . Your dreams have been shattered . All your “Nevers” have come true . Welcome to the chaotically sadistic world of addiction.

For 15 years this was my tortured and twisted reality. I’ve been beaten and broken and shattered. I’ve been victimized and demoralized. I’ve been homeless and hopeless. My tomorrow’s a perpetual question mark . I used to believe that the lucky ones died. God knows I tried. I didn’t know how to live, but I couldn’t seem to die either. But that’s where I find my purpose. If for 15 years, I wasn’t able to kill myself successfully I have to believe that I stand a chance at living successfully . Maya Angelou once said, “I can be changed by what has happened to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.” I’ve come to believe that what we do isn’t who we are. I no longer define myself by the mistakes I’ve made. I’m stronger for having been broken. Strength, for me, comes from the courage to grow stronger in all those broken places within me. I’m learning to embrace the beautifully broken pieces that make me who I am. Today I am enough.