You, Ms. Heroine and Me

The Life of an Addict’s Wife

Do you know what I find bizarre? That I’ve imagined our relationship in my head repeatedly when it’s only a fantasy that I have hoped for in reality. I’ve been a fixated fool; overly preoccupied with what is intangible, elusive and confusingly ambiguous. I never wanted to leave you or walk away from you or the relationship that I have fabricated in my mind. (I have to laugh in spite of myself.)

Today, I know why I stay. I’ve invented in my heart a scenario of love and alliance that I fabricate we are sharing. But, I ask myself, what is it that we actually have? Well, it is certainly not the stuff that dreams are made of. If I should hint a whisper of the fact that things aren’t copasetic, you in turn spew the cruelest, most malicious diatribe that you can conceive. If that doesn’t work, you clam up and refuse to communicate with me, which of course frustrates me to no end. It’s caustic and has no resemblance to attachment, love or a relationship.

It is always my aspiration to be a woman of my word, for, “A person’s word is their oath and bond.” Yet I ask myself, “Am I bound to an oath that is mendacious on the part of the other party?” Believing that I’ve shared with you what I’m looking for in life, in love and in relationships, I am now forced to ask myself, “Have you and can you ever satisfy and meet my needs?” All I know is so far you have not, nor have you tried. And if you could stop, be HONEST for one moment and not so DEFENSIVE of your offensive behavior, then I am sure you’d admit the truth.

I realize today more than ever that it is my very love and devotion to you that you hold in disdain. My presence and conversation is what you find to be aggravating, annoying, exacerbating, irritating, antagonistic and provoking - unless it is to your advantage, which is giving you what you want and DO NOT need.

Although you have done it before, last night you made yourself abundantly clear. Even so, I am not going to blow smoke up your butt and say that I don’t care about you anymore, but I am sick and tired of pretending that you’re on your way to recovery. Admittedly, each day that I am with you, I become more concerned for the well-being of my future. I have realized that I don’t know you anymore because you are now a dope fiend and I am not. The person your addiction is revealing to me is one I find objectionable, very cruel and uncaring. You blame others for your maladies and shortcomings and I don’t want to be your whipping girl anymore.

I loathe it! I am too generous, wonderful and much too beautiful a woman to settle for less than mutual love and respect. I’m engaging and very bright, therefore deserving of esteem from any man who desires me as his own.

As much as I wished to share my life with you, I also know that if ever I have a man in my life, it is much more important for me to have a man who values and respects me for the person that I have developed into. My high opinion of myself is not formed through conceit, arrogance or self-importance. It is wrought from my unpretentious manner with others, as well as with myself. How can I claim with a straight face that I am someone of value when I am allowing you to treat me as a pariah? How can I respect you or anyone if in loving you I lose my own self-respect and self-worth? I have traveled this road and I know the outcome, darling. A woman is beaten down by the verbal tirades of the man that she thinks she needs in her life until the cruel aggressor’s vocal attacks cause her to lose her inner strength, beauty and identity. She then submits to his will and no longer voices what she believes, but only those things that will not cause him discomfort. She doesn’t want to rock the boat for fear of losing him. Once he realizes that he can control her by spewing profanity or just closing up and not sharing, leaving her desperately trying to get into his mind and brain, where she feels he holds some deep thought, but which is usually empty, he’s got her under his control.

NOT ME: I am a lioness, born free and I will exert my free will and free spirit! Like the queen of the jungle, I am dauntless, full of audacity and pugnacity! My very nature is strong and resolute. Sure, I know that I am a downer on your heroin high, but you,in turn, are a downer on my spiritual high. I am high on life! There is no life in you. I see you as the walking dead. As much as I try to resuscitate and revive you, you reject the fresh air. You prefer instead the contaminated pollution of the diabolically heinous Ms. Heroin. She gives you the high that only I can really bring down. I used to tell her, “Screw you, bitch, he’s my man and Ms. H., you cannot have him.” With anger and disgust I now say, “Have the man. Ms. H., he’s your bitch.” The things that we say when we are provoked to exasperated infuriation are quite perplexing. I am not sure if I mean those words. But I damn sure feel them!

Please, this time do not accuse me of walking out on you. You were never there to be walked out on. You are gone, absorbed and preoccupied with the true love of your life, Ms. Heroin. It is hard to let go of someone that you truly love, but I really must do just that. I was once told that if you love something, let it go; if it comes back to you, it was always yours. And if it never returns, it was never yours to begin with. I hope not for the latter. Yes, letting go of the man you truly love can be a formidable challenge.

Must I try to fight? I am a fighter, a champion, A WINNER! Lord, please give me the strength to fight another day. How do I compete with the hold that she has on you. She lives in your head, your heart, your thoughts - she even rushes through the blood in your veins. She makes you feel sexy, she gives you that lover’s rush. You want to be locked behind a closed door, just you and her alone. And after she has filled your head with her euphoric lie, you rock back and forth with her, lost in her cruel hatred for you, and yet you continue loving her. In the morning when you arise, you hurry as you prepare to go and meet her, hoping that this time she will not demand too much of you, praying that she will let your desire for her be enough. But the bitch doesn’t operate like that. She wants you all to herself. She plays for keeps. It’s all or nothing. She takes everything and leaves you with nothing but a craving for more of her pure, unadulterated hatred for you. She accuses you of not being able to satisfy her. So you rob, steal and lie to keep her from leaving you. There is not room for your mother in Ms. Heroin’s world; she wants your mother out of the picture. She refuses to share your love with another. Through her seductive wiles, she convinces you to lie and cheat your mother, until your mother just gives up on ever having a truthful, honest and loving son. You lay your mother’s money and wealth at Ms. H.’s feet and she caresses you and takes you into the deep recesses of her dark abyss, where you believe you have calm and rest, not a care in the world. Just as you feel “A-OK,” that dirty bitch kicks you in the stomach and you find yourself throwing up, sweating and wanting to die. You recall what you did to your mama and you are washed with guilt.

Ms Heroin looks at you, laughing and enjoying her control over you as she deems you to be a sad, pathetic, malingering maggot. You plead with her to help you, and with a dark, evil seductive gleam in her eye, she agrees to do just that -for a hefty price. She hisses her vile, venomous words into your ear, “You are now learning my dear, that partaking of my SINS causes you to PAY more than you MEANT to PAY, And to STAY longer than you WANTED to STAY.” As she rocks and sways with you to the music of your high, she promises you she will give you more of her corrupted hatred if you renounce your children and take what is rightfully theirs and lay it at her feet. As you leave her, you are still wrapped in the mellow glow of her false love for you.

In the morning when you awake, you find that your check has come. You recall that you’d planned to do something nice for your children. You find your body aches for the loving hatred of Ms. H. and you put the kids on the back burner of the little piece of brain that the sly Ms. H. has allowed you to keep. You realize that it is her that you need; it is her that you want above all else. Hastily, you go out to meet her. Once at her door, you hesitate before knocking, telling yourself that she is not truly the one for you and this time you will break it off with her for good. She stands on the other side of the door, laughing at you mercilessly in her ruthless way. She reads your thoughts and viciously hollers out to you before you can even raise your fist to knock, “Come in here and bring me my money, you feeble-minded fool.”

Lost in her allure and your desire to be one with her once again… at her feet you lay the many promises once given to your children. It is only then that your spiteful lover gives you the ecstasy that only she can provide you. You declare your love for her and she gently rocks you in her hateful mockery and total contempt for you. There is no room for others. She owns you and she plans to own all that you have. Your love can belong only to her and her alone. Sensing your guilt about your mother and your children, she washes your body in what you perceive to be the warm, comforting blanket of her love for you. Never understanding that she is incapable of loving you, you cannot perceive that it was not a warm blanket at all, but her poisonous venom coursing through your veins. You find yourself drifting and relaxing in what you comprehend to be love. You’re incapable of realizing that she is a “black widow” and that you are caught in her deceptive web, where she will let you hang helplessly until she’s decided to consume you and make you another of her many short-sighted, reckless victims. Another fatality carted off in the pissy odor of the Chicago Police Department paddy wagon. She will never mourn you. Well before your dead, lifeless body has been disposed of, she will be teasing and taunting the next trick who chooses to love, adore and worship her. But for now it is just you, she and I. She wants me gone and I want that bitch dead. Aren’t we quite the little ménage a trios?

She senses that she’s once again lost your full, undivided love and admiration, so she sets her sights upon me. In her perverted and twisted sinister heart, I, too, must go.

Having power over you like no other, she spreads herself out before you, giving you false control over her. She lies upon the silver bed that you have prepared for her and she allows you to set her entire being ablaze. Ms. H. seems almost fluid as you draw her into the small opening at the end of the sharp point. The cruel bitch not only requires your heart; she wants you to experience her pain. She requires you to pierce your flesh with pointy spike to prove your unrequited love for her. Again, you are one with the love of your very life. She whispers into your ear how only she can take you to such ecstatic highs. She convinces you that all who would have her out of your life are envious of your completeness with her and that if you truly loved her, you would rid yourself of those who want her to leave. With Ms. Heroin, there is no room for anyone else in your world. She will require all of your love and everything you have of any value must be brought and laid at her feet to pay homage to your sick and perverse lover. But for now it is just you, she and I. She wants me out and I will see that bitch in HELL. Look at the three of us held together by love; your love for her, her love of OPP and, of course, my inner love of God.

Ms. Heroin is beginning to devise her most malevolent plan. She knows that any consideration of me in your mind could cause her to lose control of you. You have become to her a loyal love slave who she can depend upon to feed her ravenous appetites for money and material wealth. She leaves you nothing but rags, hand-me-downs, sparse if any furnishing and little to eat because she hates your weakness and it amuses her to exploit it. And because you have given her control over your mind, she now sees that I have things she’d like to add to her coffers. Ms. H. informs you that I do not deserve the lifestyle that I live. She tells you that if you truly loved her, you would lay my possessions at her feet. Then she warns you that if you do not, she will withhold herself from you. Now you are realizing that you are trapped because somewhere deep within your being, you don’t want to betray me. Yet you look at the ominous Ms. H. and you know that you will do anything for her. In pain, you think of what I have been to you and what we could possibly accomplish in love. You look back at the cunning Ms. Heroin and reluctantly resolve to deliver up our future to her. Completely under her spell, you awaken in a hazy, nodding stupor from her grip and she sends you on your way.

Once home, you lay beside me. As you watch me sleep, wishing that you could give me what I need, you know that Ms. H. will never allow such pointless bullshit, not on her watch. She’ll never stand for such sentimental SHENANIGANS.

Feeling moved that I deserve to be loved and treated as your Black queen, you quickly eradicate such thoughts from your mind. You will yourself to believe that I am just another bitch who has entered your world to make you miserable. You suffer the pain of amputation as you sever your love and feelings for me from your heart. Now you can ensure Ms. H. that your love will never be mine. Painfully, you surmise what you will have to steal from my valuables to give to your warped and twisted lover, the bitterly revolting Heroin Harlot, what you believe is due her. There is so much to choose from: credit cards, cash, diamonds, gold and maybe even A NEW CAR ! The thought of taking my possessions causes great pain in the pit of your existence and you find that you are unable to go through with it. Lying down next to me, you cry tears of the mind, recalling those who chose to love you unconditionally, while you chose to push them aside for the temporal, unsacred love of Ms. H. Your guilt-ridden mind replays the hurt you caused to those you’ve given over to her unrelenting need to relinquish from you all that you own and all those you once cherished. Funny thing is: it is just you, she and I. She wants me to find a man of my own; I want her to know that I got a man. Don’t we all make a happy little family?

Upon my , you smile and pretend that I am important to you, just long enough to get some cash to lie at the feet of your one true love. Today you require $10 and tomorrow $20, then $45, $65 and on it goes until there is nothing left to give. You try hard to explain to the wily Ms. Heroin you crave that you have taken all that I have and laid it at her feet. Ms. H. refuses to be satisfied, accusing you of being a liar, and she refuses to give herself to you until you sufficiently prove that I mean nothing to you. She demands that you oblige her requisite to possess you, she compels you to you prove your love for her by taking something more valuable than my paper money. She requires something more personal. You feel her getting under your skin and you again surrender to her ability to dominate you. Once again, you admit that she has defeated you. Once again, you sway and stagger under her power. She rocks you gently, pacifying you and giving you that false sense of security that she exudes so masterfully. Your body again consumed with her very presence, filled with her toxic and intoxicating stench, you relax in her dirty pool of sure death. When you are composed enough to maintain, she again sends you on your way.

Arriving home, you find me waiting and hopeful. Yet you have no energy to fulfill my needs, emotionally or physically. I attempt to get your attention with seductive maneuvering and erotic words. With an antagonistic tone, you inform me that you have too much to do right now. After all, the ashtrays need to be cleaned, there is much ironing to do and you want to rearrange the stuff on your desk. Watching you run around doing mindless tasks, I am amazed that a sane man could look past my nakedness. Laughing to myself, I also wonder how you could possibly think that I have been deceived and misled. I am well-aware that you have been cheating on me. I am aware of your illicit and immoral affair with Ms. H.

After completing your fallacious chores, you regretfully resent the fact that I am still awake, anticipating your presence in our room. Sitting up on my pillow, I beckon you with open arms. Thinking fast and looking for a way out, you inform me in a shitty manner that you must take a hot bath. It is at this point that a portion of the love that fills my heart for you is poured out into the river of oblivious extinction, possibly never to be revived. This is the place where the fire of every heart that was ever annihilated by those too foolish to know what they possessed,is slowly extinguished and quenched. (You have bitten off my heart in small pieces. You spit each one upon the heap of stench, which lies before the foul and offensive throne of your true master and queen, Ms. Heroin.) You revel in her rancid scent of death and ruination.

I lay upon the bed that we share, listening to the rush of water fill the bathtub. I doze off, drifting into an uncomfortable sleep, wondering what bullshit and subterfuge will dawn with tomorrow. With each day that passes, I realize that I could have had a fucking V8. It would have saved me a lot emotionally and financially, as you resent my presence and my intrusion into your relationship with the detestably repugnant Ms H. I also resent your taking my love for granted. I resent your LARCENOUS LIES. I resent your pilfering goods from all those who love you. I resent your love for the bitch. I resent that you are willing to steal for her, lie for her and even DIE FOR THE UNDESERVING WHORE!

After hours in the bathroom, you quietly slide in bed beside me, hoping not to wake me, praying that I will not notice that you are there. But I do notice; even in the haze of sleep, I am aware. Your mind begs me transcendentally not to ask any questions, it begs me not to ask for love, intimacy or affection. Certainly these all belong to Ms H. My mind replies to yours in return, “I am too tired to fight, save your depraved love for your putrid lover.” Happy and satisfied that I’ve acquiesced to your wishes, you doze off fitfully, mumbling and crying out in the dark for your true love, the contemptible and obscene Ms. H.

The sun rises brightly, but not bright enough to show through the dank darkness of your pitiful existence. You rush through your morning, trying not to think about the fact that you do not have the backbone to say to Ms. Heroin, “It’s over, I am calling it quits.” As I emerge from a restless sleep, you make light attempts at being sweet to me, offering me coffee and ironing my attire for the day. As you smile at me, I see beyond your false kindnesses. Your smile is no longer beautiful; I see the teeth of a vicious predator, a piranha. You’d as soon see me demoralized and rejected, if it would benefit your relationship with Ms. Heroin. Having come to this understanding, I once again feel the searing and agonizing pain in my chest as you gouge your razor-sharp teeth into my heart, ripping out another piece to be spat upon the dung heap that is the throne of your black-hearted love, Ms. H. Weird... it's just you, her and an ever-fading me. She wants you dead and me destroyed. You’re ripping out my heart and raping the integrity from our life. I can’t consent to the raping. We are dwindling down to two as I fade to gray.

As you hand me a cup of coffee, I look at it and know that it’s poison because it has been given to me out of your sheer desire to swindle and sweet-talk me out of my possessions. A tear drops from my eye into the steamy cup and all at once the drink is uninfected. The purity of my love embodies every tear that I’ve ever cried for you.

Through artificial concern, you sit beside me rubbing my back, vomiting up words of hyped-up comfort. You hope that my despair will come to an abrupt end because you are in a hurry to be with the one that you “TRULY LOVE.” As you assess this situation, you become angry, perceiving that I am causing you to waste your valuable time, time that can be better spent deliriously floating in the death grip of Ms. Heroin. Looking into your dope fiend bag of traps, tricks, snares, lies and cons, you pull out something that you believe will end this situation, which is getting on your last nerve, something that will release you from my presence and let you rest in hers.

Watching you from the corner of my eye and observing as you reach into your bag, I have to almost pity you. Reaching deep, you grab the “cold and distant mask.” Putting it snugly on your face, you began to flood the room unrelentingly with vindictive, biting words. You attempt to drown my spirits with caustic, cutting, offensive words and sarcasm. Then you turn up the volume with sharp, stinging, intense cold and nasty profanity. You top this off with accusations that I am a weak emotional cripple. I listen to your worthless attempts to defeat me with lies and I see how pathetic Ms. H. has left you. Sadness washes over me… and the stabbing pain in my chest reminds me that you have barbarously fed upon another piece of my heart.

Now I stand, and face you. I have no bag to reach into, so I rely upon love, which you can no longer truly fathom. Finding great inner strength, I now choose my weapons to defend against your distorted attacks. I elect to fend off your onslaught with truth and veracity. I hold a mirror up to your face. As the walking dead are known to do, you scream out profanities and plead for me to take it away. The absolute truth will free me from every snare.and you can stake your ass on it.

Seeing me as a formidable opponent, once more you search for a viable scheme from your D.F. bag of traps, tricks, snares, lies and cons. Feeling the pang of great desire and craving for your true love Ms. H., you decide to just go for the kill, and crush and demolish my love and my spirit. You reach in and pull out your noose of guilt and your belt of self-pity and misplaced blame. Looking on, I survey your every action. I grieve as you tighten the belt around your waist, putting in the first notch “SELF-PITY.” You begin relaying to me how you have no one and everyone always abandons you. I listen as you cry about loneliness and not being wanted. Attentively, I note your words of grief in regard to an illness that makes you an outcast, and causes people to shy from you. You teasingly tug at the small serving of my heart that you have let remain. You smirk as you imagine how you will consume it at a later time. Then you announce with a façade of feigned hurt that even I have turned my back on you and left you abandoned. With that gleam in your eyes that I now abhor and yet once adored to no end, you salaciously tighten your belt to the next notch, “MISPLACED BLAME.” Endlessly, you accuse and attack the character of those who have been there for you when you WOULD NOT be there for yourself. You then start another tirade of words, naming others liable for your predicament. Now I listen as you impeach my love and deem my behavior to be the problem and therefore it leaves you no other option than to hold me accountable and culpable for your addiction to the conniving Ms. H. Sizing me up, you await my response.

Brushing off your nonsensical allegations and middle-school bullshit, I throw you a pity party and present you with a cake that has been baked with huge amounts of impassivity. Angrily, I snatch your dope fiend’s bag of traps, tricks, snares, lies and cons. Reaching inside, I remove a party hat and place it on your empty head. Written across the front of the hat are the words, “WOE IS ME.” Then, tugging at your heartstrings, I sing as I pluck out the tune, “It’s your party, cry if you want to, but I AM OUT.”

In one fell swoop, I blow out the candles of your perceived self-suffering. I hand you a box, wrapped perfectly in shining passion. You realize that the bow is a perfect kiss. After shaking it, you rip open the gift. You find the box to be filled with the PERFECT fragrance of LOVE.

You ask, “Baby, is this love for me?”

I respond, “Look inside, there is more.” Inside you find a small piece of parchment, with these words written:

“Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.”

Unlike you, I have no large arsenal at my disposal. Again, I elect to fend off your onslaught with truth and veracity. I hold a mirror up to your face. As the walking dead are known to do, you scream out profanities and plead for me to take it away.

Now you are desperate to get to your lover and you hate to do it in so many ways, but you must. You have to pull out your fatal weapon - THE NOOSE OF GUILT. Catching me off guard, you toss the noose like a cowboy tosses a lasso, and before I can retaliate, it is securely around my neck. I’m unable to breathe as you pull tightly, listing my crimes against you. I am punished for suspecting you of lies, accusing you of pilfering, stating that you have an addiction that you refuse to acknowledge in the way of seeking help. Pulling even tighter, you refuse to communicate, the most lethal weapon in your spineless arsenal. You sentence me to emotional hell for asking you deep questions and seeking to open your weak mind to truth. Now I am choking and unable to breathe. You bear your fang-like teeth, with the threat of ravaging and ripping out the remaining fragments of my heart.

I feel the warmth of tears coursing down my face, as I acknowledge honestly to myself that you are a liar and a thief who would use your own children to pay honor to Ms. H. Wiping away the tears with my hands, I recognize that they are like drops of blood. My emotions are dying in your presence. Ms. Heroin has required my soul from you. But I have the comfort and consolation of knowing that no matter how hard you try to give it to her, it is not yours to take nor mine to give to you. My soul belongs to God. Jesus, who is the Christ, paid for it with His l ife and blood. You can have and destroy my heart, but you can never touch my soul.

Decidedly, I leave you to your appetite for the love of the one I find detestable, aware that you have my stolen possessions in your pocket. You know what you take is only of monetary value to me, but it is important that you feed the beast, the one who enslaves your heart. I cry as I hear you leave, not because I lost this battle, but because you can’t seem to win it. I know that I will to live to fight another day as I delightfully pack my bags, thankful that it will never again be this fight.

When you walk through the door tonight, you’ll probably think, I am the meanest bitch in the world for leaving you, but I am not. You’ll console yourself by thinking, “She always comes back and she will never stop loving me!” Deep inside, you know that this time it is different. Oh, you’re right; I’ll always love you, but I will always hold you accountable for your actions. I must ALWAYS acknowledge in some ways that the greater magnitude of fallible behavior is due to the totality of the hold that heroin has on you.

Do I want you? YES! Will I have to win the war that Ms. H. has waged against me? NO! It’s not my fight - it’s YOURS. Good luck with it. I am just grateful to God that He has allowed me to fight yet another day, to fight for what REALLY matters: self-esteem, dignity and myself. I refuse to throw away my future. Maybe one of these old days you may be able to see through the FOG and realize reality! Reality and success is this: to never forget that God is love, and if you ever choose to live in love, then you will live in and for God and He will live in you!