Candle in the wind

When someone asks me what it’s like to smoke crack — and you’d be surprised how many people do — I always struggle to describe it. There’s something about that particular rush that doesn’t lend itself to words.

It’s easier to describe other highs. Coke or meth turn the body into a livewire. Heroin makes the world distant, inconsequential. But crack? Crack is euphoria — too much euphoria. The kind that makes you wonder what you’re supposed to do with all that joy. Or why you need it in the first place.

Then it settles down. The world goes quiet.

Maybe it’s easier to describe what used to happen in my head.

You see, I had gathered a lot of thoughts over the course of an existence — some ordinary, some exotic, many troublesome. I would bring this bristling head to the local trap house and many more concerns would arise. Like, how I would make it to work and how would I get my shoes back from the proprietor of the establishment and so forth.

Cheap thoughts burning like cheap candles on a birthday cake.

When I took my first toke, all those burning lights were snuffed out at once. No thoughts. No worries. Just the eternal none-shine of the spotless mind. Only not so eternal.

A wick would re-light. Then another. And another. Suddenly, the cake was covered again — more candles than before, more than it can hold. The drapes were e ablaze.

So I reached for the pipe again. The great snuffing out ensued. Then the lights returned with a vengeance. More candles. More fire. Until I was all out of dope — and hope.

Today is my birthday. I've been clean for about a year and a half.

I still get troublesome thoughts. I don’t have the drugs to sort them out. Only words. Writing helps me process the prickly notions. Words don’t blow out the candles, but they keep the cake from burning down the house.

And now, I find myself wanting more birthday cakes. Real ones. With real candles. The kind you make wishes over.