Journal Entry from August 2005

Been running everyday. It seems to help the writing, it helps grapple those several trains of thought that run, intersect & basically keeps disappearing... at the end of each station.

I found some old entries (I go through a lot of my previous journals), its amusing to see my POV from all that time ago). An image I drew out, a close friend of mine Adrian, it fell out my 'rubberband notebook' from when I had interviewed him. I always remember his story, & the way he told it. His words ...

"...was high on brown, loving the taste - (he'd said "taste" biting his front teeth) - hanging out the door, my little finger, I felt like I was flying, man like the Titanic... suddenly the train swerves, & I'm out of the train... they put me in a cab.... I don't know how I directed that guy....but lo & behold, I was home, standing up the front door, bleeding all over... much to the joy of my mother..."

Adrian had been working about three years at the rehab, but last I heard, he was back on the streets. A casualty to the low rates of addiction & recovery. He'd once told me, that there's an immorality about choosing to do certain things, knowing the kind of pit your going to fall through. And knowing exactly how its all ending. You feel like your pants are on fire, and you can't do, shit.

It was the same old story, once out of the rehab, bumping into old dealer-friends, then trying to avoid them, they needing money for their own thing & so they crack your skull, they up side down a hatchet on your head. "They thought, that I thought that I was better than them" - the police happened to see the fight, he was the guy with the bleeding head, it was soon learned of off criminal records, the troubled past. What follows, is further social\society stuff - loneliness. Relapse, its followed by flowers - the sweet-sick fragrance that comes from flowers, graves, black clouds & crematoriums. No one's heard from Adrian for years now.

I knew another guy Indian origin - born & brought up in Malaysia, couple of kids in Wales, he used to sink down a bottle of Southern Comfort, everyday. Until one day he decided he'd quit because Jesus died for him. & he did. Went into a coma, no resurrection, his body went into shock, his heart needed the alcohol - to live. Death washed ashore like a message in a bottle.

So I read my journals & other-world stuff in my old notebooks, some of its inane or poor thinking, some of its alright.

It feels good to have a body of work to sift through every now & then. AND NOW. am Off to drop my pretty friend Rajani onto an airplane. and then off to books & Dinner with my highly-knowledgeable roommie; brother Ahimaz!