Sitting in bed at a Hampton Inn in Tampa. My mom asked me about 20 minutes ago if I'm going to bed.

This keyboard is annoying as fuck; it keeps backspacing me so I'm all typing over my shit. Hard to keep a train of thought...as if it weren't hard enough already. I'm a week off all intoxicants, 11 days off bad, heroin...my mind and my body are still aching, alternately...I was dopesick for 4 days, which I guess isn't too bad, but...I'm just so sick of living.

Now, some people would find fault in my logic. I'm young, haven't fucked myself up that badly; I'm intelligent, decent looking, have tons of support...etc etc etc. That's not what I see.

I see an obstinate young woman who is very angry that she can't be a little girl anymore. I see a brilliant person- in THEORY; if my actions were more indicative of my intelligence than anything else, I'd be a lot stupider than most. I fuck up every opportunity that crosses my path. I've had a death wish for as long as I can consciously remember...and for this, I don't deserve to live. My reasoning is simple: survival of the fittest.

See, it's normal for people to question their existence SOME of the time. It's NOT normal to want to die all of the time...because if we were meant to survive, we'd have the will to do so. I think that there is something inherently wrong with me, some force within me that is urging me to self-destruct.

Now, some would argue that this force is the work of the devil. A more sophisticated spiritual version of this argument is either 1)bad karma or 2)God gave me this challenge as something to overcome for a purpose in life etc etc

I can see the reasoning. By my spiritual beliefs, I am still here, going thru this shit b/c 1)energy cannot be created or destroyed 2)the energy that I've already sent out int the universe, in this lifetime and previous "lifetimes" (see #1) has resulted in what I'm experiencing now 3)my goal is to reach some sort of equilibrium, which I obviously do not have

So why, then, do I think I deserve to die? Or is it the monster inside of me telling me this, trying to convice me how worthless I am, so that it might allow me to make my life a living hell?

But then...doesn't that bring me back to my earlier argument of why I should be wiped ou in the first place?

I'm very confused. On one hand, if I had a lethal dose of heroin onhand, or cyANide even, I'd probably take it. (particularly the heroin. heh) Mom bitching at me to go to bed. On the otherhand, I've sat in my dad's office, looking at his gun many a time, cursing myself for not having the balls to blow my brains out.

Something is keeping me here? Yet every time I survive from suicide attempt/ideation to the next, I say to myself, "What the fuck made it worth it to stay alive in that time?" My life feels so empty. I feel so dead. I can't live with or without drugs. I know the bitter ends are in store for me if I continue to use- jails, institutions, and death, as they say- but the thought of being another fucked up person "in recovery" makes me want to hurl. I'm sick of Narcotics Anonymous and all their fucking hypocriasy. It's a great program IN THEORY...but cursed be human falliability!

I just want to find a happy medium. Be a happy little pothead again. Or even better, to learn how to shoot dope succesfully. Ha!

Damn, I wish I could smoke in this room. Stupid fucking vacation my parents dragged me on coz, at 20 years old, with an IQ that's at least above average, they can't trust me not to stick a needle in my arm. What the fuck is up with that?

They say they're not trying to be punitive. They say they do it out of compassion. They say they would do anything for me to not have to go thru this.

Whatever, man. None of it makes a damn bit of difference. I can't see beyond my pain. Does that make me shallow? It certainly makes me selfish. My parents don't think I could make it a day without even TALKING about drugs. We made a friendly bet on that yesterday;when I fucked up, I justified it coz they never backed it up with the $100 they were talking about. OK, whatever.

I really miss my best friend. He's out there somewhere shooting dope, most likely. He said he was gonna try to kick this weekend...but I of all people should know: you can never trust a dope fiend.

Well, that's not entirely true. We only lie to the point where it's adventageous to us. 1)because we're so caught up in lies anyways, the less we have to remember, the better 2)we're more than happy to spill the beans about anything, coz we like to hear ourselves talk, like to glorify what we've been thru...so long as it doesn't get us in trouble.

Take a look at any book, album, artwork ever created on drugs and you'll know exactly what the fuck I'm talking about.

I wonder why the fuck I'm cursing so much

Being clean these past few days has reminded me what an angry person I am. Reminded me how little time I've spent sober in the past 6 years (particularly the past 3 or 4_) How AKWARD it is to be sober, what a strange culture, it seems to me, that entertains itself without the use of drugs.

See, one thing I learned in my past rehab is that the difference between an addict and somebody who isn't isthat we FIEND. Sure, a non-addict may enjoy smoking a joint once in awhile...but she doesn't experience any kind of psychological death without it. I mean, as far as I know, nobody decides as a kid that they wanna be a junkie someday and rigorously makes efforts to make it happen. And it wasnt like I just woke up one day and found myself sticking a needle in my arm, either.

So how did it happen? I guess you could say that I never got high enough, that I always wanted more. That I was a sick fuck to begin with, and when I discovered drugs, as I was searching for something to make me feel DIFFERENT (from the shitty uncomfortability that was my life, for the most part, up to that point), I thought I had found my panacea. I felt that not only did I need drugs to survive- I felt like I would be intolerable to the rest of the world without them, because I was so intolerable to myself.

And that's about as deep as I wanna go with that tonight, 1)because this keyboard is pissing me off 2)because I want a goddamn cigarette and 3)because I need to get to bed, I'm sure I'm due for more harassment in the morning. Anyways, if anyone can relate to any of this, by all means, let me know.

-l.s. 8/17/03