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June 21, 2005
Portrait of the Addict as an Ill Man
My skin, especially over the forearms sparsely forested of white arcing hairs (the sole locator of grace among my constituent), floats a delicate greenish hue over a translucent ashenness. I have two overworked crack pipes, one in each pocket. I’m embarrassed to get on the rushour 4 train, corpulent as I am with smoke fume. I took a couple back to back sessions in that cubby between hall and emergency stairwell like the low-walled pass atop the inner buttresses of Saint John the Divine. And that outside recess on the seventh floor overlooking the garment district has become my sanctuary. Smoking crack, my hand cupping around the pipe as if I’m lighting a cigarette in the wind, ragged bathroom tissue to keep me from burning myself hanging out my pocket, a freshly unfurled wave of key ring bobbled with cigarette and lighter and pipe and softpack of Winston lights. I take, hold, and then watch office women scuttle through their maze a floor down in the building across the street. I rest there for tobacco, too. I come out with the incense of my religion. Born again.
Posted by peligrito at June 21, 2005 8:22 PM
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