The night of April 20th, 2016, and into the morning of April 21st, I was pushing my body to go as far as I could while the ravages of opiate withdrawal seemed to be eating me alive. I was trying to get off a two-year legal prescription of morphine and oxycodone that was prescribed after a particularly bad femur fracture that included painful complications that I suffer to this day. That fracture was the 70th time I broke my leg and one of several hundred fractures my body had experienced since birth. I was born with a brittle bone condition that meant gravity was a bitch, so I was no stranger to pain and painkillers. This time was different. I had suffered chronic pain for as long as I could remember, but this last fracture did me in so the doctors suggested I needed to be on opiates for the rest of my life. But after two years, I decided that the opiates were changing the very nature of my personality and I would be better off suffering the physical pain than destroying everything that meant anything to me in my life.
Because I was terrified of having my medical records reflect a battle with opiates, which might prevent me getting pain killers the next time I fractured a bone, I decided I had to win this battle alone. My process was simple. I would push my body each day by taking the very least amount of opiates that I could until the withdrawal symptoms were just too much to take. I started at 250 mg of morphine and 250 mg of oxycodone. By the time I was down to just 20mg of oxycodone and no morphine, the withdrawal symptoms were still unbelievably brutal after a few hours of resisting another dose. Because I pushed myself to the point that I thought I might die, I would crush the pills up and snort them so as to stop the withdrawal as fast as possible after I hit my limit. This also had the added benefit of being able to take less than a whole pill if I could stand it. I had been doing this every single day for about three months. I forced myself to take less and less each day to the limits of my pain threshold in hopes of finally breaking the physical dependency.
That same night, one of my favorite musicians, Prince, would give in to the opiate withdrawal and take a lethal dose of black-market Fentanyl to stop the firestorm from Hell that was raging in his body. Ironically, I was listening to Prince all that night as a way of helping me deal with the pain I was going through.
Approximately 4:00am, Pacific time, on April 21st, (a few hours before Prince was found dead), my withdrawal symptoms were peaking. I was staring at my pills of oxycodone that would stop all the pain in a matter of minutes if I simply gave in and crushed a pill and snorted even half of it. I decided to push myself, once again, to the very limit of my pain threshold and write the experience down.
This is what I wrote and then soon after gave in to another dose smaller than the day before. I eventually won this battle about two weeks later.
— — — — — —
Agonē Eternal
Fuck this burn. This chemical electrocution. This hideously twisted itch anchored at my core and emanating like an electric charge through every vein, artery and capillary — unable to find the ground to escape, it feeds back into the loop and steps up the current exponentially with each cycle. My bones itch as much as they ache and my joints are begging me to stretch and bend them 180 degrees beyond their maximum bourn. I can taste the saccharine sweet sweat of some medieval demon as he plays my body like a drunk soldier with nothing left to lose plays someone else’s kit left on stage following the final encore of the final show of the final night of the final tour.
It’s right there. Lined up like an off-white chain gang waiting for marching orders. Tatts and tracks hidden under white linen stained ugly and gray as an impending storm, ready to postpone this punishment for another few hours, that otherwise I’ll spend twisting and turning and yearning to give in. White-gray oval pearls of hope crushed to fine grain reflecting my desperation more clearly with each inch removed from the equation. Each tiny particle ready to blow and flow into the fold, to hitch a ride to another gray that matters only for now and may not soon. Once there, each cell can silence the wailing nerve with a painfully quiet assault and mistaken K.O. that leaves crosses on those crazed demon eyes and a shit-eating grin on his miserable face. It’s right there, spewing lies like an angry wife thinking she’s got the formula for sweet spite solved and all I have to do is pretend to believe her so I can fuck her one last time. Tonight.
I watch with curious satisfaction as a mosquito sucks poison blood from the back of my hand. I wonder how fast this venom will spawn the confused and pathetic regret I know so well. Is it a death sentence or will she just need more blood so, like me, she can waltz the last dance with Agonē Eternal?
I had met Agonē yet again, two years ago after surgery to repair a fractured femur. Back then she went by Lady Di, lauded for her half of life that was not exactly sexual but better than the alternative, and for me came with more than what meets the eye. She fucked me thoroughly like the most expensive whores, with promises of everlasting more. And like all whores, she went by many names and only one promise, the truth dripped like tears from her beautiful lying eyes.
Everything hurts all the time. It always has and it always will. I don’t remember being on Earth and not hating gravity. My way of dealing has always been to pretend well enough that when I smiled, I bought into my own bullshit. That’s not original, nothing I’ve ever felt is and I’m not under any delusions or illusions. At the same time, like a toddler being kicked and spat at by his mother’s current temporary filler, I keep grasping at my abuser’s pant leg, hoping he’ll bend over, pick me off of this scorched Earth and protect me from my, his, and the truth that is.
I have it better than most. I see. I’m privy to the truth and it’s not lost on me. When I see beauty, I have something to compare it to, and for that I’m blessed. When I hurt it’s part of the fight and the fight is part of the truth and the truth is my choice because I’ve seen the options. So I fight. Even when I’m losing I’ve already won because I see the battle itself. And as long as I see, I may bleed profusely, but bleeding is most dramatic when a heart is still beating. If you are not bleeding, you are oozing or worse, you are simply leaking slowly into an Earth that couldn’t care less.
