I’m fucking trying here, man! Truly. Sincerely. I have to stay in touch with the possibility of death, but also the possibility of life…a decent life.
When I was out there running the streets I missed writing so badly, I would think of the story I was living and wonder how I’d put it to paper, I’d wonder if I could still make cohesive sense.
I’m amazed that I can form a complete sentence, inhalants are not very good for the brain, neither is getting hit by Toyotas. I could’ve ended brain dead or paralyzed. I keep writing because I know I could have lost the ability to do it.
Last summer something made me handwrite a small story in Washington square park for the strangers project. They hung it on a clothesline with all the other stories. I walked back to union square and hopped the q train home, and totally forgot about the story.
Weeks later it was on the strangers project Instagram, it quickly got around 5k likes. My message folder was full of strangers encouraging me to write more. After 20 years of being too afraid to write much of anything I started a little blog. I developed my first viable coping skill and hobby at age 35! I try to practice every day, the more I do it the better it gets.
Writing in a notebook for hours keeps me distracted from how bad it sucks to be back in rehab again, and it helps me accept the reality. The only way out is through.
I’ve been beaten into submission again by street life and addiction. Inhalant Abuse is particularly destructive in nature and I feel like no one even knows what it is. I have to explain it to doctors,nurses, therapists and peers. They rarely know what dust off is, how I inhale it and what can happen. I feel alone with the demon, there’s no detox protocol for inhalants. At least if I had a smack habit there would be a treatment playbook.
Huffing air duster is just a symptom of a bigger issue: the need to escape myself. I don’t think it matters if you smoke crack, gamble, eat Xanax, Max out credit cards, drink vodka or fuck a ton of strangers from tinder. It All stems from maladaptive need to escape the default feeling of life on it’s own terms. Trust me, I tried it all.
To be continued….
Say hi: ev.penk7@gmail.com
Say hi with a fiver lol: cashapp $EvPenk7
