clarity

1

Expressionless I lay in the parking lot. Head is spinning, while blood elegantly and slowly drips from my vein onto my shirtsleeve. I am a wreck, like I have been many times before. I look up at the stars who seem to be the witnesses to this horror. Slowly I attempt to get up by leaning on someone’s BMW.2

Slowly and surely the guilt I feel is consumed by a short lived bliss. How I wish this euphoria could be eternal but, I know that is impossible, so I just savour the moment.3

I lie down on the wet pavement, and hear the club’s back door screech and open. It is her. She is looking for me. Her big, compassionate eyes wonder the parking looking for the man she loves. She sees me barely able to move, and a look of sorrow overwhelms her face. Immediately I feel like the screw up I am.4

“Victor lets go home. You are unwell” she says as she attempts to lift me up. I rest my weak, almost decomposing body on my angel before I learn to walk again. 5

“I’m so sorry. I fucked up.” I say and hug her with all my might. 6

“I know you did. Lets just get you home” she answers. 7

Walking down the murky alleyway I feel like a lost spirit trying to hold onto life. I feel so helpless even though I’m with the love of my life, I have a home, friends and a passion for life- yet I’m wasting away. I feel scared because I feel like I’m starting to loose. I no longer have the strength or drive to create music with my friends. I’m in no state to create the miracle of music which is incredibly sad. No band and I’m close to also becoming unemployed because of my poor health state. In a few weeks I might be eating out of a dumpster- lovely. I have no one to blame for this apart from me and my hedonism. How could I, Victor Valensi become a drug addict? I was the one with hopes and aspirations and a feeling of destiny to achieve something great. Feels like all that is gone now.8

Experimenting was never something I feared. I feared my inner turmoil. The feelings of abandonment and insecurity. Even a prestigious school and upbringing don’t drown away such thoughts. I was never afraid of drugs so during my last few years at the posh St Sebastian school, pot was my drug of choice. Soon after completing school I graduated to become a master of heroin. My friend Fab seemed to know every place to score , so he was my connection. Apart from the feelings of darkness, art has been in the centre of my soul. Creation of it has given my life meaning and a source of control. I have always been a believer of individuality as being a beautiful thing and hate the being one of the herd mentality. My art has been my distraction and expression of my gradual self- destruction. 9

Cocaine is a fiend that cannot be leashed. I could not keep it as a temporary indulgence, it just consumed me, and broke me. It feels like I’m at a point of return- yet I want to return to a place I once was. Contentment has been a stranger to me for so long. I miss simplicity: I miss art, I miss wisdom, and I miss the past. However there is one blessing I owe my life to and her name is Maya Skye. 10

Since I have no car and I walked to this horrid soulless bar, to further ruin myself, we have to walk home. Pushing past happy looking people, and walking past lively cafes, with so much vigour and soul I feel like a failure. She is so beautiful; if it wasn’t for her I would have no reason in this lie and would probably be a rotting carcass at the moment. I cam tell she is angry at me, she’s walking faster than usual, with her eyes to the ground, and she’s biting her nails. How can she put up with all this? I met her at a disintegrating time in my life-but she was never the one to judge me. All she did was love me. Her spirit and charisma overpower me beyond belief. 11

“ You’ll feel better in the morning.. lets go home quick” she tries to comfort me and is evidently choking on her own tears. I say nothing- there is nothing I can say to make her feel better. That is the sad reality. She deserves the moon and the skies and I cannot give her more than my love and fucked up life.12

I look at her and she truly is a wonder. Wearing her vibrant turquoise hippie dress and knew high boots she’s as lovely as a rainbow. Her porcelain cheeks have pinkened from the cold and I kiss and smell her brown locks. 13

“You know I love you. I’d try the impossible for you.” I finally mutter as we walk down August Avenue and get closer to our home.14

She does not reply, but slightly smiles, because she knows better than that, and it’s heartbreaking knowing that she thinks I can’t change. Maybe it’s true, maybe I’ll die tomorrow or tonight or next week. She is so wise and certain, and I am foolishly living a life of hedonism and selfishness. 15

I met Maya Skye during my art course. She was so worldly and imaginative and in awe of creating art. She has and still has tremendous talent and a huge love for Goya and Frida Kahlo. She frequently quoted Marx and Lorca and often cursed rather crudely, and I thought she was the most riveting creature on this planet. 16

Being painfully inhibited didn’t help me woo her off her feet, so I admired from afar. 17

But after months of torture without her I worked up the courage to befriend her. 18

She seemed impressed by my corniness and knowledge of Lorca’s works.19

She was 20 when we met and I was 19, and she was dignified and so sure of her self. She knew just what she wanted and she knew who she was. She would teach me a great deal about life. Back then she had just recently moved in the City. 20

But underneath Maya Skye’s lively exterior lies a vulnerable and tortured, beautiful soul. She lived in a house of alcoholism with verbally abusive and cold parents. Also your teenage sweetheart committing suicide is something unbearable and tragic. I can still see the pain in her eyes, whenever her childhood is mentioned. 21

Of course she fears she’ll loose me too. Walking down August Avenue we are like two lost souls floating in the midnight wind together. It is chilly and she is hugging my thin body tightly. We enter our building and slowly march up the stairs- while our feet are making a lot of noise. I am alert, yet weary. Maya Skye opens the front door and we enter our warm retreat. It’s always good to be home, with her. She moved in not longer after we met and turned my bleak home and bleak life into a world of joy and sheer bliss. Her aura is so incredible and healing.22

Without saying a word she enters our bedroom and elegantly takes off her clothes and jewels cavalierly, without noticing me staring. The light is dim. Seeing her naked body makes me wish I was able to make love to her. She slips in under the blankets and asks me to join her. I artlessly struggle to get changed. I touch her smooth warm hip and look into her wounded face. A tear is streaming down her cheek.23

“Please don’t cry, I beg you, I can change- I will change” I comfort her and burst into tears myself, utterly hating my self for causing her so much grief. 24

She kisses me gently and runs her fingers though my hair. She avoids eye contanct. She is scared. “ I believe in you and I don’t want to loose you” she whispers 25

She believes in me. She believes in me- her screw up junkie lover who at the tender age of 21 is fading away. She believes in me- who hardly has any inner strength and wastes her time and sanity. She believes in a bratty kid who hasn’t grown up and is getting high, instead of facing his problems and resolving his addiction. Why is she wasting her time on me? Maybe letting me go will be the best decision she’s ever made. It will hurt me- she is all I have but I don’t want her to suffer because of me. I have to be the man that I know I can be. I am stronger than this. Why am I chasing a hight? Wasting away, shooting up in parking lots and parks and ruining my soul. Blackening both of our lives. My beauty, strength and mind shouldn’t be diminishing. I should have a very long life ahead of me. 26

Flashes of my past flood my mind. My mother’s Chanel scent and Sunday lunches. Kissing my first girlfriend, buying my guitar, my holiday to Barcelona. Feel like an 80 year old loner reminiscing on better days. All this nostalgia makes me smile. Better times will come I pray. I just need to be strong.27

Maya Skye is peacefully sleeping. She looks like an angel. We love and need each other in the worst way. I gently kiss her forehead and get up from bed. It is 3am and I cannot sleep. I put my grungy jeans and jacket on. In the living room there is so many photographs of her and I. I stop and stare at my favourite. We are so fucking happy and it seems like that is not us. I cannot be see any worries on our faces. No sorrow.28

When I first told her I had a drug problem, it broke her heart. She was devastated. But she was not going to give up on me. “ I am not going anywhere, you are mine through anything” she told me. And she never did. I know it breaks her heart seeing me lifeless and wasting everything on drugs. Seeing me in pain. Its not pretty but she has been the strong one through it all. Bless her heart. 29

I touch my numb arm and think of how close I am to losing her. She is eventually going to leave me one day or she’ll find me dead with a syringe lodged in my vein. Eventually I will loose her. I sneak back in to our bedroom and look at her sleeping. She is so beautiful. Its time for me to be the man she deserves. I leave. 30

In the middle of the night I leave out home with nothing on me but a vision. Walking down the gloomy August Avenue it all feels clear. I will become the person I know I can be. The person that I was- I will be Victor Valensi again. 31