midnight coffee, with cream and nostalgia

I miss the sound of your voice but when I check the calls on my cell phone I see it’s only been four days since that night I called at four thirty in the morning. I was having a panic attack; couldn’t sleep. And you picked up the phone. I loved you that night when you didn’t judge me but just let me lay everything, all my craziness, out on you. Still I say I hate you for silly reasons. I am insane. I am so insane with you. I didn’t know who else to text as I sat awkwardly across from my roommate and my friend as they melted OxyContin over a spoon. The whole process unfolded as I sat stumbling on my computer. It starts with the inexact science of breaking up the pill, melting it, and adding water. The next step is scarf around the arm, pulled tightly to push up the veins; followed by the finding of the vein and the insertion of the needle. The needle is pulled out to see if you get blood and if you do then it’s push push push the needle all the way in. I asked you, “Have you ever seen anyone shoot up before?” You texted back promptly with the reply: “I wont have this conversation.” When did you get righteous all of a sudden? I don’t understand your moral code. I don’t understand your intentions. I don’t understand you. I explain I’m not really choosing to watch. You don’t text back. And then the stupid line slips out of my fingers and onto the phone subconsciously. I hit the send button without a thought and the “I hate you” message is sent through satellites to you, 700 miles away. Later I apologize with a picture text of a tiny Menorah with four candles and a paper snowflake in the background. “Sorry for being mean. Happy Chanukah” it says. You must think, no, you must know I’m crazy. Like I told you at four thirty last Saturday - sitting in the B staircase and shivering - and like I’ve texted you a thousand times, I want to come home. My room has turned into some kind of pseudo-heroin den - a dorm room version complete with a spoon caked in remnants of oxy and blood in the basin of the sink. Papers and clothes and dirty dishes and shoes and trash make an obstacle course of the floor. Strands of Christmas lights are taped chaotically to the wall. Some are only put it up halfway. Pictures of porn are taped on the door. My wall is a collage of posters and clippings from magazines. My roommate’s side has posters, art prints, and some piece of art a boyfriend made her out of a record arranged on the walls anesthetically. I am driven crazy by the clutter and the chaos. I can’t focus, I can’t work. Tonight I’m dealing with it by ignoring any schoolwork I should have already finished to listen to music, half-stoned. Tomorrow I will probably go back to my constant state of panic. I will probably attempt to clean and become agitated. I will probably not finish my work. At this moment however, I don’t give a fuck.