Sickeningly Mesmerized

I smelled that scent about thirty seconds ago. It was so familiar, so amazingly, sickeningly sweet. I must have inhaled ten times in ten seconds, barely letting any air escape my lungs. I suppose it was some useless, hopeful idea that, maybe, if I didn't let the smell of you escape, you wouldn't either. Usually it lasts for a minute or two, and the memory of it lives so prominently in my nostrils it's as if I'm right beside you again, all of those years ago. As if you're right beside me on a dark street, in a school parking lot, in a movie theater. But even as I inhaled, it faded, quicker than usual. And I clung to the remnants, like trying to grab hold of a wisp of smoke. And it was so familiar, yet so different. It was still sweet, still tantalizing. But it wasn't as powerful; it didn't churn my stomach in unsettling butterflies: a fantastic, beautiful nausea. I have always thought that those who are so dependent on narcotics are weak, are codependent. But how am I any different? I would do anything, would retrace a thousand steps, just to get a hint of that familiar bouquet. I see my heroin everywhere, I smell it everywhere, and I inhale it so fast that I let myself get lightheaded. I am a drug addict, and I'm going through withdrawals.

"Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;

If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,

Till she cry 'Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,

I must have you!" -Thomas Parke D'Invilliers