The sunlight breaks through tattered curtains, bleeding pristine shafts of light over me. Lying enveloped in the virgin dawn, I realize that at some point in my life I would have been in awe of the sheer beauty and grace of this sight but now I am just annoyed by it. I wish someone would please just turn it off. 

As daylight pesters me I slime out of bed and groan… it’s Monday and damn it I’ve finally got to go back to school. I opt out of the shower, changing clothes routine, I haven’t showered in weeks and if I didn’t know better I’d swear to the Gods that I only owned one pair of pants. Besides a ritual of that magnitude requires an occasion of the utmost significance, I mean its high school; I’m not getting married.

The whole way over to school, the past week slowly came back to me in fragments. Had all this shit happened in only one week? Fighting, stealing, and then the whole Macao incident, that one hit me hardest and I had to fight from feeling queasy over the whole ordeal. Just thinking about it made me physically tired.

To be honest, this whole last week was just too much for me, I mean nothing groundbreaking took place, nothing entirely new, just the same old redundant bullshit but I’m sitting here feeling confused and again, tired. I really don’t know if I can handle this going back to school shit. Granted, it’s only been a week or so since the spring break started but to tell you the truth, I haven’t really been there in what must be months already.  So why the hell am I even going, you ask? I don’t know, I really don’t have the foggiest of notions. Well, maybe it just makes it seem like everything else isn’t so bad if I actually put forth the effort to show up for school. Does that make any sense? I’ll reiterate; if I put forth the effort and look like I’m an upstanding, law-abiding member of society, there’s just a slight, slight chance that I could possibly con myself into believing the same. Better?

I walk into school and the sight of these people all but sickens me to my stomach, with their “look at me, look at me, I’m so cool, look at me! FUCK YOU!

I haven’t faced a day sober in more days than I could possibly count and there is no way in hell that I’m going to start now.  I make a beeline for the nearest bathroom, dodging numerous greetings and salutations. I slam the door louder than I’ve ever slammed a door before, hoping it will give off the ‘Do Not Disturb’ vibe that I hope to achieve. I mix up, it’s seven – thirty in the morning, I can’t think of a better time.

I sit in attendance letting every bit of the heroin absorb itself into my every cell so that I might block this day out of my range of vision. I make my way back down to the bathroom in the few minutes I have before class so that I can have a cigarette. And with that, I am officially and completely balls-to-the-wall, loaded. I look outside again but the people are still there. In desperation I go to my class so that I may spend an hour or so trying to catch a nod or two, its better that looking at these faces any longer.

After nodding at a computer, trying to look productive, I head back down to one of my many sanctuaries (bathrooms). On the way down, I rediscover that just the sight of these people is literally making me queasy, why do they have to sit right outside my bathroom?  I duck inside, making as little eye contact as possible; I slink to the floor and smoke another cigarette.  Some kid comes in and bums a few drags from me before the next class starts, I give it to him just so that I don’t have to talk to him anymore.  Class is starting but I light another cigarette just to avoid having to make conversation with any of these people.

I’m really way too loaded. I’m not going back to class, right now that seems just as daunting a task as facing these people any longer, with both my school-time options cancelled out, I decide to call it a day and leave at eleven.