Tainted

In the beginning of my addiction[s], there were certain places and people i had to deceive of my using.  Mostly out of fear.  i would hide my distraught and taboo doings from them. and i'd NEVER chance it.
One blown pipe and the whole city would flood, a kind of paranoia...

And i became an expert at hiding things very quickly.  Turning shirts inside-out to hide blood stains.  turning the ankle of my sock into a wristband to hide post-suicidal razor cuts, i kept all my drugs in the soles of my shoes.  Nose bleeds, Overdoses, constant vomiting ; i was just a frequently sick kid as far as the nurses were concerned.

But there were places i'd never even BRING heroin, cigarettes, a bottle full of pills...nothing.  I wouldn't even worry about jones-ing or getting dopesick.  One of these places was a vacation house i'd visited very frequently since birth.  Almost every weekend, long stretches of time during the summer.  It was in the middle of no where essentially.  about a 25 minute drive from anything resembling civilization, a few hundred yards from a lake, and completely BURIED in the forest.  Since i'd done the most of my growing here, spending days on end alone walking through the woods, catching frogs and turtles, burning shit...somehow it became this sacred place - and i could never bring myself to "change" my relationship with this place that had posessed innocent little me.  So i never EVER got high or drunk there.
Never even brought anything just in case.  Really, i was breaking the golden-rule of being a heroin addict...Never EVER EVER go anywhere without your shit.  ALWAYS be ready.  But it never even phased me...it was without question that i could never taint this beautiful piece of my childhood.

I eventually drove myself into a crippling drug addiction, and more and more frequently crossed these imaginary lines in the sand; until there was nothing left but a ravaged beach.

There was another place i treated like that house in the woods, that did not fair as fortunate in the tides of my blind need for substance.  A beautiful island.......i mean, so beautiful you would never want a single thing for the rest of your LIFE, except to draw another breath.  Truly perfection - and i treated it that way for many years.
Eventually, i went seeking to impose my own thoughts of perfection - upon nature's version... as soon as the first few lines of china white went up my nose, this incredible sense of guilt overpowered my numb, serene, paradise.
And i could no longer enjoy it.  All i could think of was "i hope i don't feel like this when i come down", and sure enough, the trip faded, and the guilt stuck around...like some new years day hangover that you don't forget for a fucking week.  Where all you can smell is spilled beer and cheap perfume...you change your clothes, open the windows...but it still lingers.

Every time i go to the island, the guilt lingers in the back of my brain, waiting to leap forward the next time i piss on perfection.  Of all the places i held "sacred", or safe from my drug addictions, that house in the woods is the only one I never tainted...it's really the only thing i'm proud that wasn't affected by my lack of morals, and blatant disregard for anything but ingesting more heroin.
After all those years, it's still perfect to me.