ORGANIZING LIGHT

Book IV: Dopesick

I’ve had moments of clarity. The dope propped one moment upon another, stacking them in piles as reality splintered about and left me, these instances becoming raindrops striking and breaking the surface of my great grandmother’s pond years ago - the catfish and bass scattering and I’m alive in time again. I saw my great uncle for the last time there before his illness took him, we fished and laughed and I was all grown up and he wasn’t the least bit worried about me, proud even. She’s long gone, Great Grandma, her body disappeared from Time before I could even go to a bar. When Cecilia left it was another round of this loss and I remember I told my Professor, my hands unable to leave my sides, about the junk in my blood from the loss and he didn’t even leave his chair. My eyes sting again when I recall.

I can’t anymore, the dope, remember where I got the stuff or how it even felt when it was in me it’s been so long just that it was too good for humankind and was most definitely the fruit of The Garden we’d lost. The screams of the years before formed raised lines along my skin that you can touch and know forming patterns a woman might use to recognize me if she liked me enough and was blind and in need I suppose - they call them scars but I can’t quite agree because they’re so much more useful than the word allows.

We counted the blossoms together from my room in my home for the summer all those years ago again and again, Grandma and I. We went to the store, talked to people, and I was set to want junk anyway. I am stranded in this time loop, staring in at myself the window very clear despite it having shattered when Father pushed my uncle through the glass before I was ever a thought, knowing that I’m doomed to lie in bed begging for the stuff when that caramel woman leaves and no matter how I warn myself, how I shake the world around my body to bless it…there’s just no stopping it.

It’s a nexus you see, coming to want junk is a critical moment in a river of moments that will later provide for the movement of the known universe. I’ve almost figured it out but have no means to return with the knowledge. I’ll recycle over and over - perishing means this starts again.

Lifetime upon lifetime soil in the arborist of The Tree’s hands, he laughs hysterically at my blood unfolding before him in strands, waiting near his shovel and pail, the perfect moment upon us.

The dope looks so good beyond the glass.