knee-deep

[well.]

i had lunch today with my friend, s. we met in rehab two months ago. one of those friendships initially staked in geography, but blossomed from a je-ne-sais-quo spritz of mutual adoration. i love having friends like these. people that speak the truth, who don't wade around in a kiddie pool of passive remarks that splash icy droplets. rather, douse me with the cold, dank truth as soon as i swipe off my shades.

"yeah, you look a little tired around your eyes..."

"i know. i finally got to sleep at 3:45 am, then woke up at 6:40 am... "

"show me your bloat..."

and so it went. because for us to stay sober, we must be honest and willing and free from ego.

[and this grey garden hair-sprouting, acne-covered, un-cover girl-ed, men's clothes'-sporting, gobble-girl, currently on disability with no immediate prospects, is free from ego and just about everything else...]

so he told me two of our alumni had gone out on heroin. and another alumnus had hanged himself. someone i remember seeing at meetings. with 34 days, back again with 16 days, back again with 5 days; finally, never coming back at all.

from a vampire's kiss, the blood began to drain from the nape of my neck; warm, throbbing, dull.

so when i pulled into the 24 hr. fitness parking lot, it was no great surprise, the bite of the undead had mutated into a migraine's aura; ache muscling throughout my entire body, aggravating my tissues, my vessels, my every drop of lifeforce.

and underscoring the raging, muffled scream i unleashed inside that parked, ford coffin, was an unapologetic, desperate cry for relief, for escape, for painkillers.

please, please, please, please, please, [gimme me], please, please, please, please, please, [help me]...

[well.]

7:00 pm los angeles time: CNN reports that whitney houston is found dead at 48. then. she was the first black woman to grace the cover of seventeen magazine.

43 hours earlier i blogged about exactly that in "princess bridled (one moment in time)".

impossibly prophetic. incredibly sad.

the first rule of journalism is to never assume, so it was with more than a fair bit of self-righteous amusement that i gorged on CNN reporters swerving and snaking around whitney's unknown cause of death, like a precious game of twister.

everyone; reporters, broadcasters, guests, were tiptoeing around the proclamation sure to be trending around the world if it comes out that she died from an overdose. salivating with such transparent, nail-biting, zit-picking anticipation over the prospect, that i took a cloth to the condensation, coating slick my television screen.

but, not tonight...the hackle-sharpening descriptions of her "issues" and her "troubles".

and, not tonight...the dangerously glib "what a waste" and icy ignorant "not surprised".

and definitely, not tonight...don't blame bobby brown...he's not a french sauce you can reduce this down to...

because now i am on the other side of the fence, peering through the white picket slats into the lives of the lucky and the clueless. the ones unyielding in their discrimination of us as those who can't seem to "pull it together".

[but, you see. drugs are never the problem. they become our solution...]

beautiful, talented, diseased.

the bow! the rhinestones! the dress! and, oh, the whitney!

["how will i know?"]

why did i think to write about whitney 2 nights ago?...

was it coincidence?

was it the universe?

was it a godshot?

[i am rattled, scared, and humbled. like a summer's june bug, my black lacquered armor is surrendered to the mud; exposing my pulpy underbelly for all to preen, prod and pillage.]

when you've cried so much, you can no longer see straight...you look up...

when you lose sight of everything you've ever known...you look somewhere you've never looked before...

the view from my knees is pretty radical.

[i hope her view is the greatest view of all...]