Smoke eclipses my lungs with warning, but I forbid this from coming about. My intense drug softens the heat of my now dark soul, giving it a cool layer of prestige ice. I am gliding into the brink of nowhere, as the place I am at is no layer in it’s previous existence. My walls have turned into a subtle gray, and the world around me is in a sullen blur. The meth is now my capture, having a propelled need to control me and every move I make as if I am it’s little toy puppet. It stings me and releases me from the world, which is enough to claim meth as my savior, without the religion that makes you feel like a lower person beneath an Almighty that nobody can see, nor has ever spoken to this so-called Almighty.
I don’t remember how it first started, but I know how felt when I took my very first line; the rush and excitement I felt was past the hook, line, and sinker of amazing. My veins curled as the smoke inhabited my lungs and took control from there. I was hooked for life from that moment on. I couldn’t breathe a single minute of helplessness any longer, as that very moment when the methamphetamines took complete control over me made me experience the wake up call I needed. I saw this “perfect little world” how it really was, and that was just what I needed. Every lie that was thrown at me in my life was put out in front of me without the sugar coat covering over the lies. It was a beautiful moment for anyone to experience. No lie would ever be told again to me, because I could now forever see the truth.
Sure, I remember the days before meth: they were the days of fear and betrayal by almost everyone I knew. I remember the hands touching me and scarring me from underneath my skin, those many years of abuse I suffered through the hands of my God-retching parents up until I was five years old. The state of Nebraska took me away from them, and put me into foster care. Throughout the rest of my life, up until I was eighteen and out of the system, I was beaten and abused by more then seven foster families in the course of that time. At one point, while living in the Moreson home, my foster Dad touched me and my older sister Elaine for about two years. He did it separately though, taking one little seven and nine year old at the time. Elaine and I weren’t stupid, we knew what was going one we just didn’t know how to speak up. When we finally spoke up to Mrs. Moreson we suffered a brutal beating, that still shows on my right shoulder. She beat me and Elaine until we passed out, and then locked us into a closet until the next morning, where we were served breakfast … and a new home.
Elaine is probably the only thing I have really ever fully held onto throughout my whole hellish life. Unlike most sisters in the world, we never fought. Instead we clung to each other in poignant times of perpetual need. When one of us screamed in the night, the other was there to be the consoler. She was always my rock, someone I knew that would never leave me behind in the dust like everyone else did. She never hurt me, and I always held her when she cried, as she did to me. She is the most amazing sister I ever could ask for. The foster care system couldn’t ever split us up even if they tried. We were the most difficult siblings to ever split up, because wherever one went, the other went as well. We are still inseperable to this very day, and I don’t want to ever imagine that ever changing.
When it comes to my methamphetamine addiction, Elaine does her best to help me through it. I never go to her house high though, even if I just smoked a line. That would just be straight up disrespect to my sister. I can see in her eyes every time I see her that she wants me to find some salvation in something other than a line of meth, but I know she probably sees in my eyes the suffering I have bequeathed with her throughout our whole lives. Sometimes a big sister can understand you more than you really understand yourself, and for me, that’s a little scary. I know myself, but the only place I can really seem to find it is through lines and my demon, the methamphetamine addiction that maims my life in more ways that the scars beneath my heart do.
Although we have gone to H*ll and back with each other throughout our fragile lives, we have managed to pick up broken pieces that we thought were lost in a fire and place the pieces back into a new work of art. It may not be beautiful, but it’s at least something nice. Elaine is married to a lawyer, (I am actually shocked she even did get married in the first place, considering what Mr. Moreson did to her and I) and is expecting a child in three months. I like her husband, Rick; he is a pretty cool guy, mainly because he is a good man and knows how to treat my sister the way a real should. I can’t wait to be an aunt actually; I’m having two baby nieces who I hope I can teach to have a good life.
The meth takes me over completely, making me forget everything I’ve ever known. Even the memories which pierce me everyday … The one that is always in my brain, my meth-jacked brain from blurry little lines, is one that the meth cannot erase no matter how many lines of smoke inhabit my mouth. The memory is on I can now see crystal clear … I see my scars in the smoke, the hazy blue smoke that envelopes me into a web of unconsciousness …





***

A string of harmonic dreams breach my eyes into a deep slumber, so deep that I would need The Sacred Kiss to make me awake to this world. I see fairies holding me in their magic and masquerading me into a good life, one that I fear I will never know in my life. I’m scared that the real world will never be available to me in this lifetime. The world of which I know is real and sweet, even if some people think it is the cruelest place to be.
I do not hear a door sing to me when it is opened, this slumber being so deep and profound that it does not even allow me to hear the simplest of breaths. I cannot even hear my own mind flow, but I sense somebody is here. My ignorance takes the best of me, and I do my best to push the sensory perception away from my mind. However when I feel my bed sink to the springs, I know I need to wake up, but I can’t. I feel something on my cheek, something cold and wet. My instincts getting the better of me, I wake, despite my frustrations of not ever wanting too. I see my foster dad, Mr. Moreson looking at me with those piercing blue eyes. They almost scare me, with their dark lore that frightens me the bone. I can’t ever look at them without getting an ice cold chill down the center of my tiny spine.
“M-Mr. Moreson, what are you doing inside my room? Is something wrong?” I ask him, scared that something happened to Mrs. Moreson, my foster mom. I love Mrs. Moreson, who cared for Elaine and I as if we were her own.
“No, sweetheart everything is okay. I just need you do something for me”, he told me, his eyes getting more scary every second I looked into them.
The only thing I can even say next is that my pure innocence, the innocence that I kept protected and sealed, was cut and burned. The pictures and movements of this happening are blurred, almost as if I cannot remember; but I can remember. It no longer belonged to me because of that evil man. I cried once for Elaine once after five minutes of this hellish incident, and before I knew it, he was doing the same thing to her too. She screamed beneath his threats for her to hush, and that cut my heart open to hear my wonderful guardian angel, Elaine crying for me, but I am sitting here defenseless and wondering how I am supposed to save her. We were not taken separately the first time, but all I know is this: I was never the same afterwards.
When he finally took his heels and guided them swiftly out the door, I was shaking uncontrollably. Tears, hot and warm, were strolling down my face, unstoppable. I felt hands wrap around my quivering shoulders, consoling me, but without thinking of who it was, I slapped them hard across their face: it was Elaine.
She didn’t say a word, just wrapped her arms around me, and we both cried for our innocence being dead and demolished. I cried for our parents, who didn’t care what just happened to us even if they didn’t abuse us for the first part of our lives. I hated them so much for placing us in this horrid foster care system. I would rather die than go through this again: I was seven years old. The only words that got me through this night were the words that placed a bandage on my now bleeding heart, and they came from my nine year old older sister.
“June, I want you to listen to me okay? I love you more than words can ever express. You are my sister, and nothing, not even this horrible thing that just happened can ever change that. I love you, Junebug, forever and ever until I die and the lights in the world close out”
I think of these words now, and as I return back to the earth, I know what I have to do.







***
The next day is the day that I gave everything up; my weakness, my fears and the monster that has consumed my life since I was sixteen years old; Methamphetamines. After I had that flashback, I realized that if I really need a rock in my life, I will always have my beautiful sister, Elaine, who has shown me the path of recovery. I know some people aren’t as lucky as me to get help on their own through a trust person in their life, but this is something I am fortunate enough to do.
As Elaine and I walk into the Sawgrass Rehabilitation Center, she grasps my hand in hers, holding on tight as she always has. She sighs and looks at me straight in the eye, with her eyes as green as the grass outside, and asks “Are you sure you’re ready for this? This isn’t going to be easy alone, you know”
I smile at her and look at her from head to toe, her belly swollen from the twin nieces that I probably won’t get to see as newborns, and her face as beautiful as a celebrity’s. I nod my head slowly and say, “I won’t be alone, I have you, just like always”. She hugs me tight and I take one final breath before I take my steps toward the rest of my life, my clean and new vibrant life. In six to eight months, I will finally see the world anew and different, thorough meth-ridden eyes alas. As I walk to the receptionist’s desk, look back at Elaine and smile, knowing that through every hard step that I am going to face, she will be right there beside me.
The receptionist looks up at me and asks, “May I help you, ma’am?”
With one more sigh, I speak: “Yes, you can. My name is June Sinton, and I am addicted to methamphetamines. I am here to finally get some help”