Hunger

The hunger started when you were about 15, you went to Jack’s with a couple of mates and he passed you a zoot. You’d never even smoked a cigarette before because you were such a little mummy’s boy. Didn’t know how to inhale properly, so you choked. Cough. Cough. Pass.

Next thing you know, mummy’s boy is in the basement with a bunch of blokes he doesn't know. Watching them score up.

“Look at that. Bashed out the perfect line.”

They all agree. You don’t know the difference, so you just sit still and hold tight.

You’re not coughing anymore, you’re sniffing.

You never sit still again. You can’t even shut the fuck up. You want to superglue your own jaw shut but it won’t stay put. You keep saying things that don’t make sense, and you sound like that hum you hear when you can’t tune the radio properly. The white noise that goes bzzzzzzzzzz forever and ever. That’s you. Tonight, tomorrow morning, and the evening too.

You’re useless with girls, too. Every single girl that smiles at you, you want to bang their brains out. And the sex is amazing. Sex on drugs is always amazing. Two clammy bodies on a blanket that would stick to a wall if thrown at it. Every single time, you fall in love with the body and not the person. You want her to meet your mum. You want to grow old with her and have babies with her. In the morning, she’s disgusted by you. A weird and mangled mess who won’t leave her alone. Later, she’ll tell her friends “Oh, my God, I can’t believe I fucked him.” And they’ll probably all laugh at you.

The hunger continues.

There is a kid that used to get the school bus with you that did skag once and died. Just one time. Overdose. That's it. Apparently the first time you ever do skag, it’s the most intense high in the world. You just lie down and take it. Whilst everyone’s saying this is so sad and such a tragedy, you’re thinking something completely different…

"If this high is so intense then he must have died a king."

The funeral was on a Monday, but you didn’t go. You’re thinking about ways to shoot up and feel just like him. Absolutely fucking perfect.

A dull grey afternoon in Preston. Knocking off school to go for a walk and smoke a blunt and maybe do some K. Your mum didn’t raise a useless druggie, she raised a shy and sweet little boy. The same little boy who always wanted to pass out the nibbles at family gatherings, and make sure everyone had enough tea to drink. A little boy who grew to be a maths prodigy at his secondary school. When he was 16, they said Cambridge.

When he was seventeen, they didn't say anything at all anymore. They didn't say anything about you after you bought that lock for your door.

You’re hungry all the time. There’s this ache in your stomach. There are a million shivering teeth gnawing at your insides, beside the broccoli and tub of Ben and Jerry’s for lunch. Except you know the ache is not to do with food. It is to do with a quick fix. It is to do with weed, pills, acid, ket, mandy.

You want more. You want more because of the comedowns. Every time you come down, you fucking die. Your brain is made of jelly, being mashed up with a fork. All you can hear is your little brother screaming.

You don't want to come down, that's the point. You're searching for the one big high you can never come down from. All your important parts, all of your brain and lung and heart parts, just different. Happy, not sad. Your brain would just be in another place. It would no longer inhabit your family’s post-marital home. Your heart would no longer cry for it, either.

I asked you to tell me if that was the reason why you were doing drugs. Your dad beating up your mum.

I don’t think I ever got an answer.

You don’t want to come down because you have to remember it all. You don’t want to come down because when you do, you have to do fucking maths. You don’t want to come down because everyone is trusting you to say and do the right things at the age of 17. It won’t stop at 17, either. It will go on and on and on. Until you’re 96.

Once, you came home high. Just once. You walked through the hallway, with the pictures of the horses and the family. And you stood at the bottom of the stairs. Dad had Mum by her hair. And she was screaming at him to get off. He was screaming back, but at you. Saying that he was going to chuck your mum down the stairs and if you didn’t get out the way, she’d fall on you and he’d hurt you too.

You were scared that night. You thought Mum was going to die. You still remember how the carpet felt as you ran up the stairs toward them. It felt like it was slipping beneath your feet. You punched your dad in the face, and he let go of her hair. He hit you back and so you hit him again. You fucked him up, didn’t you? And then he left forever.

You don’t have a dad anymore. You don’t know if you want to have one either.

You think about the boy that overdosed and died.

You wish you never did drugs. You wish you’d stayed clean of it all, because not everyone has the right mindset just to do a load of coke and pills in one go. The boy that overdosed didn’t. And now, you don’t either.

Maybe you can go back to college tomorrow then. Maybe you can go home and give your mum a hug and tell her you’re sorry. You know the pain behind her eyes isn’t about your father anymore.

You’re not going to go and call your dealer. You’re going to go home and see your mum and tell her you love her. You’re still human beneath the high. Everyone is. People forget.

You don’t want to do drugs ever again. That’s it. You’re going to stop, now.

In three years' time, you’re at a party with two of your best mates. It’s about 2 AM. And you’re thinking of going home. Someone mentions pills, and your brain goes into overdrive. You think of all the amazing sex you had whilst high, all the intense and amazing conversations you had. How you danced for hours. How you forgot your dad.

You nod to everyone, grab your jacket. Go back home.

As you walk away from the house, you feel your intestines clench. In and out. Like you’re taking a massive shit and your insides are reacting with spasms. The teeth yawn and breathe out. Bite down into your soft and quivering flesh.

The hunger is still there. It’s always there.