Love's Down Tango


Love's Down Tango written and read by Shane Levene





In Love's Down Tango I found myself in a twirl. I wasn't sure what was real or what was not. The city became a place of instant memories and nostalgia. Thoughts of what had passed only five minutes ago seemed idyllic and golden. In the freshness of those summer mornings I'd rise and feel joyous and alive. I'd smell my own skin because it reminded me of her, shower in cold water and sit at the window as the great heat made its way in. I prickled with existence, like I was a part of everything. The floral scents of parks and gardens that blew in on the early breeze cleansed me of something that soap couldn't touch. I collapsed back on life and let it carry me away. Suddenly the cool, damp shade under pine trees, us alone, in huge lost parks, seemed like perfection... like nothing else could ever get better than that. In that time, every past pain and sorrow became a thing of celebration: a journey to salvation – to the very moment: staring across at someone so outrageously beautiful and have her stare back with eyes just as intense and needing as mine. In those eyes I could have sank and died and not have cared a damn. Sometimes I just laid back and let happy tears leak out, thinking of meadows and sunshine and water and sky, and all things free and wild.

In Love's down tango I'd steal secret glimpses of her reflection. On subway trains, in blacked out windows, my gaze fixed on her neck. That's when she'd drift, as if having mental orgasms, sensing my eyes on the tender of her prey. As we rocketed through tunnels I felt hollow, like I had no stomach at all. In less than two weeks in a dirty bed, a lifetime of hurt and pain had been fucked, cried and kissed away. What had only yesterday been a bleak world on the unlucky side of death, was now bursting with hope and promise. The entire place had been transformed. The factories billowing smoke over in the distance now inspired me, so too the river. The flats, which had towered up around the back all these years, no longer held dark connotations. Even the old disused power station took on a a kind of historic and abandoned beauty. Some days we'd walk under its shadow and talk of industry and poverty and love and death. All things were to be celebrated. All things had led to her.

In Love's down tango I got swept away. Strange currents pulled at me and dragged me off. I became romantic to the point of gibberishness. I wandered the city, down tree-lined avenues of shade by the river, my head drunk on what was behind, all around and up ahead. I tore off leaves and rubbed them into my hands, sucked in the fragrant air like it was something healthy. The sounds of life and nature would bring me out in tears of joy. Poetry flowed out of me: sentimental nonsense trying desperately to express what I felt. I became humane. I fell in love with scabby mongrel dogs. I started saying things I didn't mean, and other things I meant so much. One warm evening, with the dusk sitting on the horizon and the last echoes of day ringing out, I told her: “This city is of You now.” The moment was intense. We both felt it, a darkening overhead, as we stared at each other in terror.

In Love's down tango I became a fool. I'd jump up on seats in packed public transport and declare how much I loved her. Other men cringed for me... seeing themselves in my madness. I felt no shame; only pride. I'd walk around town kissing and blessing the homeless. I'd gatecrash counselling sessions and tell the depressed that there was hope. I'd touch blind people on the forehead and tell them: “now you can see!” No one had to be poor if they could feel like this. I bought a writing desk and planned books and novels, films and radio plays. At work I sought out promotions. I Brushed my teeth twice a day and showered before and after sex. Then, one late morning, I washed my hair with washing-up liquid and dried it with a towel from off the floor. She called me a “disgusting dog!” and said that she was leaving. Sitting on the edge of the bed she re-did her scarlet lipstick, clicked her little mirror case shut, put on her blacked out sunglasses and warned me not to come looking for her or phone. She said she'd contact me when she was ready. I tried pleading with her, blocking her path. I smashed my head and fists off the door, screaming: “No! I'm sorry!” Then, facing her, I slid down the door until I was sitting flopped out on the floor. She remained on the bed, her legs crossed, clutching her handbag and turned the other way looking out the window. I shuffled aside and said: “So go then if you're going.” I reached out for the culprit towel and draped it over my head so I couldn't see. I heard her rise, heard her footsteps, heard the rattle of the door handle. In a desperate last attempt to stop her leaving I threw myself out and gripped a hold of her ankle, curling my entire body around her shoe. “Don't leave!” I begged. “Please don't go!” She just stopped and stood there, as calm as anything, staring forward and saying nothing. After a moment I saw what a tremendous fool I was being and let go. She lifted her leg and stepped free like I was a monstrous piece of dog shit. That was the first bust up. I lay in its aftermath shaking and sobbing and having panic attacks. My mind and body doing strange things.

In Love's down tango I lost all notion of self-respect. Saving face seemed futile, and anyway, I was glad to break down because of her. It seemed to validate something. After each new bust-up I'd show up at old friends at crazy hours, frantic, dishevelled and without socks. From the public phone box at the top of her street I'd call my Mum in tears, begging for help and asking her to send a taxi to come and collect me. I lost control of my actions. Weird impulses would have me obsessively redialling her number, sometimes for hours, until she'd finally take it off the hook or smash it against the wall. I'd pay kids a quid a time to knock on her door and deliver love-letters and flowers. One time the kid returned with a bunch of stems where she'd gone crazy and ripped all the heads off. She'd told him to give them back to me. “I think she's mad with you!” he said.
“Did she pay you?” I asked. He shook his head. I gave him another pound coin, took the stems and dumped them over her garden wall. Once I sat on the bench across from her house for three days until she finally came out and took me home. People became embarrassed watching me; my family ashamed to see tears in my eyes again, tears that I hadn't even cried through a childhood of appalling emotional squalor. But this was different: it was my tragedy proper. I had fully invested in this one and was not just a kid hanging onto his mothers skirt and being dragged along to the next fiasco. I was struggling with new feelings and strains inside my body. Things that didn't physically hurt but seemed to penetrate right to the core of my existence. I felt insane, sane, happy, sad, lost, found and dangerous. I was a man capable of marching off to war. I cared so much and I cared so little... both extremes at once, leaving me confused, unstable of mind and scared of myself.

In Love's down tango the nights crackled and fizzed and deep songs drifted out the stereo. The room seemed like a square floating lost through space. It was just us now – astray in a universe of black where things carry on forever but get further away. The only light we had was two little red and green LEDs on the stereo. From the bed we'd stare at them. They became a point of sadness absolute, both of us sobbing away in the dark as it dawned on us just how useless it was and that no-one was really going to be saved. As the last song drifted off to nowhere and left a throbbing silence in its wake we'd hold each other tight, stare into each others eyes, and wait for Armageddon.

In Love's down tango day was always night. Some kind of uninvited darkness now joined us in the room, its hanging presence causing silences and long, forlorn thoughts that were no good. We were a tragedy unravelling, a train heading for the buffers, and everyone was wondering what kind of impact we'd make. I started cutting love letters into my body, and she split herself up between multiple personalities – each as crazy as the next. Some nights she'd turn her head and when she turned back she was someone else: her eyes wide and glaring, covering up in shame and itching and shrieking like I had stripped and violated her. She'd run out the house, 3am, waking the street in just her knickers and vest, tugging at her hair as she collapsed to the floor, screaming: “I know what it is! I know what you are!” From the upstairs window I'd curse her, call her crazy, chuck her heels at her, tell her to “fuck off”, then I'd follow for four miles, trying to cover her with a blanket, saying “Sorry” and lying about other things as well. One night we ended in a park, alcoholics and bums cigarette glows and coughs on the distant benches. Under the same fig tree I had once found a dead cat hanging we cuddled up and went to sleep.

In Love's down tango I was a dangerous man. I lost myself in films and books on crimes of passion and sat staring at my hands and wondering just what they could do. I discovered much about myself in those desperate times, and as the forces of love and hurt and jealousy and obsession converged I realized absolutely that one day the cure I had found to my past ills would be the same force that would blow my future apart. We started talking of death pacts, of going down together, dressing up for marriage and walking ourselves out to sea. Nights descended into pits of depraved perversity, the both of us making insane pledges and promises, and gripping on so tight so as madness didn't drag us off completely. Sometimes it seemed like another morning would never arrive. And then, just in time, her face would show a little more clearly and her body would come out the dark and be shivering slightly in the thin early morning light. Somehow the early bird calls, with industry waking up over the rooftops, heralded yet another depression – something not ours, rather a general gloom that for a while we had escaped. We started putting blankets up against the windows. We slept through the mid summer days, the heat trapped in the dark of the room, a fan whirring but only circling hot air. We'd both writhe and sweat through separate nightmares, straining and reaching out for release. The descent was on. We closed our eyes and let it swallow us up.

Oh, the world was so delicate then. I was almost scared to walk for fear of going right through the ground. I clamped up and stuck, not wanting to twist and risk losing what I had. I sat through dark quiet nights watching intently, looking for early signs of the apocalypse. One night, out the silence, I told her she would destroy me. Her crazy eyes lit up and widened. She gripped me by the hair, pushed her face right up to mine and stared a universe deep into my soul. “You'll destroy me too,” she said, through streams of tears, “I think I want to die.” On the first morning of autumn I woke up and she was gone. At first I panicked, then I surrendered, then I smoked two cigarettes, and then slept for thirty six hours straight.

In Love's down tango she shaved off all her hair. I opened the door and stood staring at her in shocked disbelief, her eyes crazy as moons, tears welling up as she smiled and said “I'm back!” Later that night she became a familiar looking stranger and said she felt like a prisoner. She asked: “Are you sure you love me so much that you want me to be here even if I don't want to be?” I meant to say “no” but instead I said “yes.” Then I said: “I saw Grace yesterday. She was sat in the park, under the old school shed, drinking and reading the old graffiti and looking out with such sadness.”
“Did you fuck her?” she screamed.
“Of course not. Would you be able to fuck with a broken heart?”
“That's when I fuck the best!” she said.
“Then I suppose that goes to show how different we are.”
“If you ever fuck anyone else, EVER, I'll kill you!”
“You're crazier than me,” I told her. Then I said: “It's all very sad, now.”
Without saying a word she rose, left the room, and went downstairs. When she returned she was holding a large kitchen knife. She laid it calmly down on the bedside cabinet then stepped out of her dress, and naked, climbed into bed.

I stared at that knife for three days. It sat alongside her cigarettes and lighter and ear-rings, and made me think of terrible things: of having to grab it first before her. Then she said: “I want you to cut me. While we make love I want you to cut my breasts. I want to bleed in this fucking bed!”

And so we fucked. So hard we almost became one. As I thrust she cried and looked at me with such intensity I thought I was a Devil or a God. She dug her nails into my back and clawed out trenches of flesh: slithers of my skin under her fingernails.
“The knife...” she whispered, “take the knife!” Laying beneath her I stretched out and took the knife. I ran the tip of the blade down between her breasts. She closed her eyes and lent back, her arms splayed like she was about to be crucified. I stared at her, the tips of her milky front teeth behind her partly open mouth; her head tilted back and at an angle; her neck stuck out and taut in total trust. I thought of the knife, of pulling it straight across her breasts, of how ill it would make me if gaping wounds opened up and I saw the knotty flesh before the blood. She opened her eyes and looked at me all dreamy, her head swimming in a sea of eroticism. In that instant I chucked the knife down and told her I couldn't do it, that I didn't want to hurt her like that. She groaned and deflated in anti-climax, like I had finally delivered her the greatest disappointment imaginable. Then she collapsed down close, crazy passionate again. She bit hard into my neck, released, then hissed a vicious death threat into my ear. She said she wanted me to talk to her, call her all the whores under the sun... tell her of men, strangers, who'd rape her and force her to do hideous things in front of me or her parents. As I told her all she asked she squirmed and shivered and shuddered about on top of me, having orgasms that looked more like an exorcism. During the most intense pleasure I ever gave, I wasn't even hard. When she was finished I rolled out from underneath her, terrified at what I had just seen. Later that same night she started up with real life horror stories, telling me about her and friends picking up men, following strangers on the metro, sucking them off in doorways and elevators... of being gang-banged in stairwells. When I begged “STOP!” she said I was wanting to revise her history, put her in chains and deny her her liberty and womanhood. She said she needed to tell me these things. That she wasn't the pure angel which I had created of her in my head. September became an ill month, each day infected by some repulsive history that she needed to get out. Vile things would now come randomly from her mouth. One day, on the number 14 bus, as we were curled up together looking out at the passing shops, she told me that it was in just that very same position that she was first fucked in the arse by her best friend's husband. I removed my arms from around her and watched the world alone. From that point on we took to dressing in black jumpers and dark shades and moping around town like two figures of doom.

In love's down tango I stopped sleeping and stayed awake reading tragic poetry from people who had chucked themselves off bridges. I longed for those innocent days when she'd stood outside the train station, in a light red dress, the summer exuding directly from her. Now I sat there through the nights, watching her as she slept, seeing hideous shapes manifest in her body... her beauty now looking like a deformity. There were times when she'd open her eyes, still drunk on sleep, and for a moment, deprived of memory, she appeared beautiful again. She'd give a shy, dreamy smile, and then the data of her life would re-load and she'd look crazed and lost and sorrowful once more. When I slept, her body felt like a huge black negative presence besides me. The smell of her sticky summer skin and cropped unwashed hair infiltrated and plagued my dreams. I'd dream of the river and turbulent waters, and that furious space either side of the bridge supports where the water divides and rushes around and sucks and pulls down. I'd groan and fight off dream demons, her pushing me away, hitting and elbowing. “Fucking stop it!” she'd hiss. Our pains and torments were no longer endearing, but a burden. That insane obsession and fervour that we had promised to save each other with was now the same force turned inside out and set against us. She kept asking if I loved her, and I did, and I said “Yes!” During the last two months we tried to recreate the first, but the music didn't work no more, nor the candles, nor the inspired verse that love had once forced out by pure overload of emotions.

In Love's down tango I became ugly. Gaunt. Ill. Depressed. A stranger to myself. Inside I was even worse. Our love had turned rotten and unhealthy, but it was still love and it was still better than anything I'd known before. Just having someone I wanted seemed to fulfil a great need in me. When she wasn't with me I'd start imaging what she was doing - who she was doing it with. I'd ring and kill the phone or just hang there silent. She knew it was me but couldn't prove a damn thing. I knew it was crazy but couldn't stop myself: love is a mental illness. In the evenings I started going down to the river, alone, staring over and off the bridge into the big black swirling eddies, or walking around town and picking out the tallest buildings which I could throw myself off. I was miserable in my own skin, and we hadn't even crashed out yet. Now when we'd meet I'd sit around hung with gloom, somehow hoping that my distress would re-ignite something in her: even pity. But forces inside myself were working against each other. While one tiptoed around this house of ice the other took to it with a hammer. My mouth would just say things, and as soon as it had I was apologizing. I started asking questions, getting suspicious of her absences, interrogating her after she'd passed an evening out, accusing her of everything she was capable of and suspecting her of being capable of so much more. Then, in a sudden burst of toughness, I'd throw her out and tell her never to come back again, that she was “history!”. A few hours later I'd be at her door, standing in the garden in the rain, screaming that I couldn't live without her. I started hinting at suicide, calling her up and saying “Goodbye” then, not taken at all seriously, blackmailing her outright with it. Those old tricks that I despised so much in my mother, that I'd promised I'd never repeat, I was now employing for the same ends. The few nights we did manage to spend together from then on were maybe the saddest memories of both our lives, lost somewhere between insanity, hatred, bitterness and base animal sex.

Just before the real cold British weather set in, before the trees were completely bare, before the last of the birds had migrated, before one of us was ticked off and zipped up, love was finally driven off the cliff: she left for foreign soils and booked herself into psycho-therapy. The only contact I had was for her father and he refused to speak to me. On Christmas day of that year, on my pleading, my sister made an international call, and through tears, gave news that the body of a young man had been dredged up from the river and it was almost certainly me. She still never phoned. And all her father said was: “pass on our condolences to your mother.”

In Love's down tango the city smelled of Her. Walking around alone, in the winter of that year, I was tortured and mocked by memories. In specific places I saw our ghosts; heard echoes of time: us laughing, little things we had said, desperate promises we had made. In bars I saw us sitting in the corner, alone, secretive, withdrawn from the world outside. There wasn't an inch of city anywhere which offered any respite. For a brief moment I'd lived joy under London's sky and going back to the rot of yesterday was now punition too much. I became a prisoner of my city... of my memories. My own existence goaded and tortured me; I reminded myself of so much. In Love's down tango I went on a pilgrimage of pain. I retraced my journey so far, crying and making no sound. Sadness and despair just poured out of me. People looked on me like I was a freak... like I'd just staggered away from a bomb blast, unaware that half my head was missing. Mothers would shield their kids eyes as I passed, hold them in tight and block out my vision. There is something about real grief and hurt in a man which terrifies people. It terrified me too. In Love's down tango, in that fleeting, mystic twirl, I opened my eyes and for a moment I saw it all.

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54 comments :

Jim said...

This was a TRUE Tango!

It had me fooled at first and I thought you had changed plateaus in your life, like Picasso....

Thinking about this piece all day after reading it twice, I wondered what the reaction would be from your readers if you wrote it in reverse and ended on the “up”?

This is the best short piece I’ve read of yours.

bugerlugs63 said...

Beautiful writing, as always.
And oh the crazy stuff we do in the name of "love" . . . I've made many of those silent calls . . . luckily for the recipient it was in the pre-mobile/pre-internet days. Imagine the possibilities now!
Love sent to you x

Anonymous said...

There's nothing like love to make a good man crazy. And yet...I'm sure you wouldn't change a thing about it.

Best to You,
CG

Anonymous said...

Just wanted to say you have a great site and thanks for posting!…

Anonymous said...

If I could read you for an eternity it wouldn't be enough. Can't get over that your words are free on a blog, publishers should be hunting you down. Such talent. Any subject you write of hooks me in. Don't usually kiss arse but even if yours were unwashed and covered in shit it would still get a rim job haha ; ) love love x lea x

dirtycowgirl said...

"love is a mental illness"

That should be printed on t-shirts.

Even when you write prose I find myself reading it as if it was poetry, putting rhythm to the words in my head.

You should be famous by now - really.

asdf said...

this is the best thing you've written for ages and one of the best things I've read all year? for years? ever? One of those three, I'm not sure. Amazing xx

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Jim... I already replied by mail and so just a kiss and run here! X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Bugerlugs... you know what, looking back I don't regard that as love... it was very far from anything healthy or caring. It was a very selfish time for us both and I think we were young and trying to find through our first loves what we had lacked growing up. It was a rich time of feeling... but love was very far from that place.

Thanks as ever for your words and time... X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Chef, love would turn the insane crazy! But as I said in my comment above it wasn't love but more a kinda therapy, I think. We tried to get from each other what we wanted growing up... we searched for our remedy in the other and at first we thought we had found it... but only because we were blind and desperate.

I think in real love it has to be about the other person... you cannot show real love when your own well-being is a part of the equation. But I'm a love cynic... I'm fullof romance yet don't believe in the biggest romance there is. X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Anonymous (1)

I think you may be tinned war-time ration food.

SPAM! X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Anon who'd rim me even if I disgraced myself in public! Now that's loyalty!X

I think publishers are probably biding their time and crossing their fingers that i'll snuff it in the very near future. I accidentally discovered the other week that there are nine separate publishers subscribed to my writings here and one was even copying and archiving everything (or that's what it seemed). I hope I'll see some reward for the words... just enough to pay my rent, pay the dealer, buy a few pot noodles and be able to write in peace for a little while. I'll continue doing what I do anyway... to give up now isn't an option. Love and Wishes, Shane. X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey DCG... X

Yeah, I liked that line. I initially tried to squeeze it into the opening paragraphs but it didn't work. A little present for those who made it to the end... XXX

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Nathan... Yeah I liked that piece too. It was a fucker to write though. Initially It was gonna be only a page long, then just on the point of going to post it I decided I hated it so much and cancelled publishing it. I played and added to it and a week later it was almost ten pages long and a complete mess. The tidy up was an horrendous affair... over another week editing out five pages of text and then rearranging and rewriting the individual segments which I was left with. Most my writing follows that structure... and there's always a point where it's either gonna get binned or finished. Most get binned, unfortunately. This one made it though... just! X

Sailor said...

I find it very hard to write about such intense feelings of love/obsession without falling into over-used cliché and corniness! Very good job here. I remember being so crazed on psychedelics, lust, jealousy and hatred that I found myself creeping up on my lover with a chisel up my sleeve. When he refused to turn around and notice me I threatened to use it on myself. It's all very melodramatic and selfish and I could never live like this day-to-day but intense, destructive affairs build up a massive reserve bank of emotional memory. These things are valuable for a writer.

London is full of strangers at the moment. Did you catch the Opening Ceremony? What did you think? I was fully expecting to be disappointed but parts of it made me smile. The NHS section was hypocritical but I did enjoy seeing Trainspotting up on the big screen and hearing miniscule clips of some brilliant songs.

Sxx

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Sailor... X

I've learnt, that to even have the chance of being a decent writer, you need to somehow have no shame or embarrassment of your life acts. Those secret behaviours that most would leave out of the text you need to have the courage to put in. But it's not really about being courageous... you either do or you don't feel ashamed of certain things, and if you do, you can never really expose yourself or your fellow men. I think it's why the great writers often have problems with friends and lovers and family... all those who are close to them. Because they don't only open themselves and their own behaviour up but shine a lights in on the acts and complexes of those around them too. But our behaviours speak of many things, and often not about us at all but the world that is around us. Our faults, and fetishes and weird behaviours also often show up the best of us. Those vulnerabilities, that we all have, are often endearing. And if you look carefully, more often than not, we're known and loved for our faults and character flaws over anything else. I've never smiled and wanted to hug someone who told me how great they were. Concerning cliché, in a way that's a consequence of the writer or artist not delving in deep enough... because when you get to the real core of things cliché isn't found there. I think cliché often serves as a kind of protection... and aside from that, for writers who only use cliché, it means you can knock out a book or two every year as all feelings and emotions and expressions are already written. So I think to write well the writer needs to be brave. If he or she is brave then they've a tiny chance in this gutless world. XXX

Kate M. said...

Hi Shane,
I've been reading your blog for a long time now, and I want to say you've been a real inspiration. I recently started a blog about my own addiction, and while it's nowhere near poetic and eloquent as yours, I would love it if you could give it a read and maybe even give me some constructive criticism?
Truly,
Kate

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hiya Kate M... I sorry but I never offer up criticism of people's work, constructive or not, as it only ever leads to bad feeling and bad blood. In all honesty, I never read dope or drug writing. I enjoy other stuff. I guess because I live this life the last thing I want to do with my free time is then read about it. But I always cast an eye over peoples stuff who leave a comment anyhow.

The only advice I'd give you if you want readers is not ask them outright to visit your blog. To say you've been reading for a long time but only now leave a message because you want them to visit yours can give the wrong message. I only say so because I've done the very same thing myself and never once picked up a reader by doing so. If you just leave a comment, even a very short sentence about their text (but not a general message), it's absolutely certain they'll click across to your site as everyone checks out who the new commenter is. Also, often by pushing what your doing in your comment, it gives people an excuse not to visit as they already think they know what they'll find. It's liek if someone says "Love what you're doing Shane... please check out my Grow Your Own Vegetables blog!"... well, the chances are i'm not gonna visit as I'm not really into reading about cabbages and courgettes. Though if they'd just have left a simple message like: "Shane, you're the greatest fucking poet who ever lived... I'd like to suck your cock and put the video on YouTube!" Well, I'd visit then!!!


Good luck with everything... Thoughts and Wishes, Shane. X

Anonymous said...

Hey Shane,
I feel like I know you, but as I don't I'll just put it down to the old junkie, pardon, heroin addict thought-patterns and my chronic insomnia...
Couldn't sleep so thought I owed you a comment to say thanks for the stories and written slices of your life.
If I was ever (un?)lucky enough to get a job writing book reviews, (the publishers don't know they're born if they've not spotted you yet) I'd write something along the lines of:

Shane Levene's words cut cold as the pin which slices skin and snags virgin mainline, and suave as the plunger pushes home; sharp, satisfying and deep enough to sting with acidic wit...and always, but always leaving his reader wanting more...like coming home...
Ha, I always loved a good cliché but your work's something else...
You sure got something to be proud of here...ten, eleven, twelve years ago (yeah, I was an arrogant little cunt) I used to think I was the Queen of the junkie pen, but no one would publish me. Your writing and your blog and be damned attitude puts mine to shame
(maybe I just think that because I'm tired of reading and re-editing my stuff constantly, like a bad hobby in perfectionist bullshit: always a mistake on every sentence just lurking in its re-phrasability...maybe my stuff's not that bad/good/average after all...Before I made the (mistake????decision????fuck knows) of knocking the gear on the proverbial head, for sure, I wouldn't have given a fuck anyway.
Hey well the fact that I googled (or ecosia'd) heroin literature in the first place speaks for itself...the craving never goes away, not for me anyway...anyone else with different experience is either quoting "fake it to make it" NA literature or had enough...which I thought I had in 2001.
What a fucking shit year. By August I had ODd twice and half poisoned myself to death on the shit that they were selling either to murder us or just to rob us...
Yeah, I'd had enough alright. 5 1/2 stone I was, but I would never had quit if the decent gear had kept flowing...(and I may not have been so "slim" either...my tits we like empty tesco carrier bags yeuch...
That's part of what stops me from going back. (the bad gear more than the tesco tits)
Anyways, you inspired me to get my stuff out there in a vain attempt not to return to my favourite past place...spent 7 years "doing research" into injecting techniques ;) and 11 trying to find out why life without my old china is so fucking shit...(if you'll pardon the clever dick puns)
Whenever I get my arse in gear, not on gear, and to a computer I'll set up a blog. On this phone I can't even post under a name so excuse the anofuckinymity...

Yeah, it's been good reading your stuff. Got it bookmarked. You paint good too.
Artists, writers and musicians...a lot of us gone down the dirt brown track eh? :)

Much love&inspiration,
Vee X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Vee... thanks for the reading and replying, and sorry it took a while to reply but sometimes I just sit staring at things and get lost in time.

Thanks for the pretend review, I only hope people are that kind and dishonest when the time really comes. With all these bloody internet pseudonyms it's not beyond the realms of possibility that I'll end up writing my own reviews for my own work. If I ever get the chance I'll ruin myself with some of the greatest put-downs ever. become a revered critic after ripping my own work to shit.

You know, I don't like junkie pens and never read junk literature. For me it's an insult to the addict who writes to qualify him or her as a writer with the word junk or junkie. I don't think writing of junk has any value in itself, only if it takes in something more than that. Most "junkie writing" just makes me hate the junkie, and the well of pity that he or she writes from. I just can't bear it... I can suffer a page or two and then I'm thinking of suicide and murder. Though there are a couple of people who incorporate junk into a larger body of thought and ideas and who's writing I think is larger than the subject.

I personally wouldn't know if the craving ever goes away as I've never stopped and have no intention of doing so before I die. I went into this, it cured me as it killed it, it was a fair trade, a fair pay-off and I'll see it through to the very end now. It's nothing romantic, just how it's gonna be. I hope it is anyway.

OK... thanks for again for writing Vee and apologies again for the delay in replying....

Thoughts and Wishes, Shane. X

Anonymous said...

Shane i too sit staring at things and get lost in time! What the hell is that?! My eyes zone out and everything. Sometimes happens when I don't want it to...people get really pissed off at me. It'll happen in the middle of tesco and I will just stand transfixed on a jar of mayo, sometimes I'm not even thinking of anything. If you've ever seen "I heart huckabees" I achieve "the ball thing" daily. That film is amazing, i watched the shit out of that film.
Anyhoo bit random but I was checking for a new post and that comment made me laugh, I could relate innit

Anonymous said...

Hey Shane,
No need to apologise: see how long it's taken me to reply to your reply. I've had a bizarre kind of week and ended up the wrong side of blissfully happy and unconventionally housed (not sure the housing department would put it quite like that but let's just say I'm in a tight spot...always new things to write about, life's good at that. ;) )
So, caught in my own tedious and nauseating version of love's down tango, I tried to reply twice but they didn't believe I'd written anything (even machines doubt me these days) and told me so in red, then wouldn't let me go back and post what I'd written. Third try lucky?
Ha, I'm wondering now how many slating reviews are written by yours truly self...a fun way to spend lost-in-timeness, and more interesting still to anonyfuckingmously create and view the responses!
Ah, the junkie pen. Fully agreed on all you say there, bar the murder and suicide. (don't even THINK about making an application to the only rehab that works, better you don't read any well of pity!)
As I said I was an arrogant little cunt in those days. I've hated the times I've taken a trip down self pity lane, it totally loses humour, and humour is what keeps me (in)sane. After all, sanity's relative: depends who's judging.
Well, there was a lot more I was going to say, but my memory's not the best, so I'll just post this and wish you happiness. Love&inspiration,
Vee X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Vee, well I first started staring at things when I was about seven after watching the film Carrie. I was convinced I could bring my school down. I tried... I really tried, but the thing wouldn't budge and so I put her windows through with bricks and stones. Then I'd hang around in the assembly hall, my eyes scrunched up on some little turds work that was hung up on the wall, trying to have it erupt in flames. Didn't work either and so I bought my first Clipper lighter and set fire to the thing myself. So I think my staring comes from there. I even tried to explode a girlfriend once... in the deep of night, my eyes on her, penetrating some unknown energy source, concentrating. Didn't work again and she ended up staying and making my life hell for two years. Now I don't believe in supernatural powers or anything spiritual... there's just a gradual natural destruction and erosion and that's all.

I actually have left a fw comments on this site using the character accounts from Waiting for John. They never said anything nice. As for seriously writing anonymous comments... jeez, I just would never do it and it's worthless anyway because it's kinda third party comments and reviews that get readers and spread the word. It's also very hard to hide your own hand from someone who knows you. For example I can tell who people are by certain words they use 'innit', line spacing... if they always write in lower case... where they put smileys, if they close off before ending... use punctuation, etc etc. It's very distinct, and to hide all that... is very very difficult. Many nasty anonymous comments are from people you know. There's been a few loyal readers here who've returned under an anonymous cloak to leave nasty, jealous comments.

There's nothing wrong with self-pity... we all have it and express it. I guess that's why it's so hard to read because as we are reading someone whining about their life and position we think of our own life and see we have the same problems and issues but are not screaming about it or putting it in people's faces. But some self-pity is very valuable to read. I enjoy reading self-pity from youngsters and teens who are just finding themselves in the world and learning of the horrors and the unfairness of it all. It's a self pity that isn't so pre-meditated or designed and then has some worth. I could type on forever because I'm thinking of books of stuff now... but I'll spare you. I'll spare the world for a day. (cont'd -->)

There'll be a new post soon. How soon? I'm in the dark as much as anyone else. I've loads of really nice texts started but haven't been able to finish anything lately. I've lost my only dealer here and had methadone concerns too and the last thing I wanted to do when I'd finally gotten sorted was write. I've also been jogging and doing exercises and healthy living is very unhealthy for writing. The kind of adrenalin it gives off, the body a bit hyper and the heart pumping a little faster, isn't conducive to the still, tuned-in state of writing. What I'm really trying to say is that healthy living is killing me! I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Take care Vee... good luck with the housing and the tango....

Thoughts and Wishes, Shane. X

Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way said...

Hey Shane,
Hahaha, I remember sitting in the cinema, staring at the backs of people's heads and willing them to itch...itch...itch...mentally chanting ITCHITCHITCH...and they mostly did, but it was more likely to be a boring film than me the next Uri Geller, eh?
Yeah, writing styles...hard to disguise. I have this...habit...of the old three dots...fuck knows where I got that one from.
Well, the housing's just a pain in the arse; brick wall syndrome's got bigger and better and the excuses not to register me are flying in full-throttle. They didn't even believe my kids were mine..homeless kids? In Tory Britain...what on earth are you talking about my dear, we're a first world cuntry (sips champagne)
Yeah, it's an arse.
Thanks for the good wishes; I'll get there by camping outside in a Lidl box maybe...
Ah, I did that blog, but fuck knows how I follow your blog and others from mine: maybe I cunt. Uh sorry, spellchecher going weird again...
Well, your stories about psychic arson had me laughing, so you've cheered up my otherwise shitty day, so bless ya (whatever that's supposed to mean, but you get the gist)
I'll try posting as my blog name, if it won't let me, then I'll just remain anyfuckinnonymous until I wirk this pc stuff out. I can't even work out how to post a photo yet.
Well thank you for making the proverbial sun shine on my day a bit, hope the sun shines on yours too :) There's a smily for you too.
Thank fuck your girlfriend survived: what would you have done if it had worked? would you have put her out?!
Wishing you a beautiful day
Love&Inspiration
Vee X

Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way said...

Hey Shane,
fuck knows if the reply I posted earlier worked, just checkin :)Here's a smily for ya
Love&inspiration
Vee X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Just a quikie for now Vee... I think they call 'em 'power fucks' nowadays!

yeah your comment worked. because there's moderation here the bloody things just disappear when people send them and no-one nows if it's gone through or been eaten up by the net. I didn't use to moderate comments (and still don't) just for spam purposes. For some reason on this blog I getting twenty or more spam comments a day and without moderation all the subscribers get bombarded with them too and then stop subscribing.

I suppose if I'd have successfully exploded my girlfriend I'd have scooped and shovelled her up, put her in bin bags and dumped her around the back where my mother used to dump her empty bottles. I'm not sure how lucky that girl was as two years with me isn't much more fun than a messy death. Last time I heard from her she was in a hospital for the criminally insane... weird how they all end up there??? X

Frivolity said...

Hi Shane,

I’ve been lurking for some time now.
OK, stalking.
Hoovering up every crumb you’ve written – in your postings and in the comment threads.
Came here seeking darkness, only to find everything illuminated.
You are a wondrous writer, a true talent. You have a real and rare gift.

I have no personal experience of the kind of life you grew up in, but my Dad was/is an alcoholic, and so there are things I can relate to in your writings.

I have lived in Lyon on and off over the past four years, alternating with periods back here in the UK. Your words on the gradual loss of identity through not being able to express oneself cut me to the bone. It was partly cos of that I had to run away finally and not go through with getting married.

Thank you for sharing your talents so freely and generously.
For all your talk of dying, what screams loudest from the page is the absolute urgency of living. Thank you for the wake-up call.

I hope the below doesn’t come across as crass… cos anyone can do a google search, and writing is not my field, so no doubt you are far more informed than me, but... you should be published. What you write is literature and poetry. The world may not deserve to hear it, but you deserve to be heard. And there are people starving for authenticity in this disposable plastic world.

Have you looked into creative writing residencies, fellowships, prizes? I’m an academic so I spend my life pitching ideas to funding agencies and trying to bridge the gaps between short-term contracts. I’m confident that there are lots of funding sources out there that you could try, though it can require a bit of ferreting to unearth them. Here are a couple of links from said google search:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0821/1224322562925.html
(bit icky this one and praps more aimed at the schlock rock writer, but mebbe there’s a grain or two of interest in it?)
http://writingcontests.wordpress.com/category/writing-residency/
(OK, this happens to be a US site and some require US residency, but not all, and there are some pretty interesting opportunities lurking in the backfiles, something like this for example: http://theorphanageresidency.com/ Presumably similar opportunities exist in other countries too.)

Hoping this is not bang out of order, patronizing, etc. Maybe not the kind of funding route you’d be interested in traveling, but thought I’d mention just in case.

I am hooked. And I’ve forgotten entirely that it was a ‘heroin’ search that first brought me here. Your writing sweeps up, out and over that tiny little patch of terrain to eviscerate ‘la condition humaine’ with a skilful scalpel, a truth-seeing eye, and poetry in your veins.

You deserve much success (however you define it) and then more.

With much love and admiration,

Frivolity

(p.s. I have gone the posting route somewhat reluctantly. I am cyber-shy. Don’t think that this has much to offer to your comment threads, which are often as absorbing as your main posts, so feel free to treat this as an email if you like. It would be if that route were an option.
p.p.s. and oo-er, it ain't half long either....)

Frivolity said...

and in the same vein:
http://www.nawe.co.uk/the-writers-compass/funding.html
there's a link on the right to a pdf on funding sources - for prof. development.

Unsolicited meddling is one of my afflictions.

Gravediggin' Under the Mancy Way said...

Hahahaha, Shane, thanks for the power fuck. I keep replying and it's not posting again and my brain's on one of those "can't remember what I went in the kitchen for" ones today. Insomnia, zopiclone and exhaustion.
Did you get your script or gear sorted yet? Hope all's going better.
I had all these things I wrote that I can't even be half-arsed to remember properly now, but that's one way to put someone out...you could have used your psychic powers to pour her into the bottles for passing alcoholics to enjoy a whole new way of drinking bloody Mary. Sure I phrased that better last time.
And now I've forgotten the name of the person who commented above, sorry ^ but come on, once you've read one post, who can resist stalking? Right? I'm working backwards and by the time I've run out backwards reading, there may even be a new post.
Sorry, my eyes are half closing and I am going to take advantage of that right now. Bollocks to insomnia. Thanks for the laughs. Hope you're feelin better.
I tried to stalk you on youtube today on my mate's computer: the fuckin sound wouldn't work, so I pulled a cable out to try to plug in non-existent speakers and the screen went blank.
Bollox, I'm going to sleep.
Night night, hope you sleep better than I have been,
Love&Inspiration,
Vee X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey ya Frivolity.... oh, lurk or stalk all you want. I write the words here but it's the readers who spread them around and ensure they get read by more than two or four eyes. There's a huge debt owed to all those people who link or do write-ups about me as it's that which creates a real audience.

I think around 80% of the readers here, like you, have no experience of the kind of life I've had and are not addicts themselves. It's one of the things I'm most proud of concerning the writings. Hopefully it means that the writing transcends its obvious subject and captures something else within it. I hope so as I've never been interested in writing about addiction but rather the life which surrounds it and sometimes helps lead to it.

The loss of Self is very interesting and I've wanted to write much more about it. I've three unfinished texts that touch upon that, so no doubt soon one will end up on the Dogs We Were site. Maybe the loss of identity works well for a writer as it forces he/she to search and find himherself on the page with much more urgency. I think rather than passion it's that urgency which produces great writing as it then fulfills a need and we can't help being honest and wild with our expression.

Marriage? What's that? It's a weekend thing isn't it?

You know frivolity, I write the texts and put them out and let them be and what may come of them I leave to whatever bizarre hand decides these things. I should do more, everyone says so, but I just don't have the hardsell in me and find it very difficult bigging and boosting myself up and trying to sell myself. I've always been a very shy person and just find stuff like that impossible. Residencies are out the question... a) because of my drug use b) I can't bare the company of writers and would end up alongside Dennis Nilsen on a mass-murder rap. Writers, in the main, are despicable, bitter jealous people constantly fantasizing about planting fountain pens in their rival's backs... well, I do anyway! But I would be interested in funding. I would accept anything that'd allow me to write full-time and not have to worry about the electricity being cut mid-sentence. Still, send any links you think may be worthwhile as I look over all this stuff anyway and take a general interest in most things around literature and writing. My email addy is myheroinhead@gmail.com. You can mail there or post it here.

Ok... that's me all worded out. Thanks for all your kind words and links and ideas, etc.. it's stuff like this which makes the comment section a worthy document in itself.

Thoughts and Wishes, Shane X

Anonymous said...

Hi Shane, I don't know why I'm writing about this particular post as opposed to some other, because it's hard to pick the most brilliant. Just found you. I'm knocked back and stunned. I'm reminded sometimes of Cocteau when he talks about his opium use; sometimes of Radiguet; sometimes of Rimbaud; sometimes of de Quincey and Burroughs. I'd like to ask you what writers you like? what you've been reading? and, really, there's too much to say, my God, French is my second language (English my first) and I know so well the homesick roamings around Paris, terribly lonely, hollowed out with it, standing around book shops with a cold in my chest and wet autumn heaves thick on the pavement, or wandering the Luxembourg gardens with a book under my arm, Sunday afternoon, no idea even where to buy a pack of cigarettes---fog and damp, cough cough, lonely.

Forgive me if I don't talk about dope; dope is one thing; dope is a democracy. But you belong first and foremost to the aristocracy of letters. And that's how I choose to meet you: on your own true ground. Wishing you well, sending you good dreams and a happy Spring and all the homage you deserve.

Anonymous said...

Tried to post this yesterday and am not sure it went through so I am sending it again: please forgive me if I'm repeating myself.


Hi Shane, I don't know why I'm writing about this particular post as opposed to some other, because it's hard to pick the most brilliant. Just found you. I'm knocked back and stunned. I'm reminded sometimes of Cocteau when he talks about his opium use; sometimes of Radiguet; sometimes of Rimbaud; sometimes of de Quincey and Burroughs. I'd like to ask you what writers you like? what you've been reading? and, really, there's too much to say, my God, French is my second language (English my first) and I know so well the homesick roamings around Paris, terribly lonely, hollowed out with it, standing around book shops with a cold in my chest and wet autumn heaves thick on the pavement, or wandering the Luxembourg gardens with a book under my arm, Sunday afternoon, no idea even where to buy a pack of cigarettes---fog and damp, cough cough, lonely.

Forgive me if I don't talk about dope; dope is one thing; dope is a democracy. But you belong first and foremost to the aristocracy of letters. And that's how I choose to meet you: on your own true ground. Wishing you well, sending you good dreams and a happy Spring and all the homage you deserve.

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Anom.... Forgive me for the delay in getting back back to you I've not been feeling too well this past week but am on the mend now. I'll leave you a proper response in the next day or so...

Thoughts and Wishes, Shane. >X

Anonymous said...

Oh, call me Marie (there are a lot of us Anons on here). I'm really sorry to hear that you are not feeling well and hope that you are feeling better by the time you read this (you don't have to post this, it is probably boring for other people to read) but I'm glad you read what I wrote, and posted it, and wrote me back. You are an amazing writer. The painful life you've been through would crush most people----even normal 9-to-5, married-with-kids life crushes the spirit out of most people, like that guy you worked with, the one you wrote about (although, it sounds like he never had much spirit to start with.)

Anyway you are a poete maudit and a brilliant soul. (And, by brilliant, I mean brilliant in the truest sense of the word, throwing off all kinds of crazy sparks and flames and green chemical fires.) I'd still like to know the writers you like, and who you like to read. Maybe I just haven't read enough of your comments on here, but I would love for you to post about how you started reading and writing, and what you loved, and what books you loved first, and what books you love now. Anyway: as someone who hasn't at all lived your life (except for the poor and lonely in France part) I want to just step up and say what a wonderful writer you are. I'd like to throw flowers at you. And I hope you are happy, sometime? and hope that maybe it will make you happy to think, sometimes, that readers you've never met are thinking kind thoughts about you and wishing you happiness? Life is fucked up for all of us and it seems like it's been extra fucked up for you but it seems like you've had some joy as well or else you couldn't write the way you do. I'm wishing for you to feel better, no matter what.

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Marie... I'm working on a reply so bear with me. Will hopefully have time toi finish and post it this evening or through the night... X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey again Marie...

(As news, magazines, biographies, non-fiction,etc hold such a different place in the world of literature I'll keep this comment to literary fiction.)

Literature is a difficult subject for me. I'm not somebody who is impassioned by words per se, and neither am I a bookworm. In fact, for the most part, reading is a huge chore and is very rarely a pleasure. If I do read, and will continue to read, it is now mostly because these people are my contemporaries and if one is serious about writing (and not only writing, but writing in a new and transgressive way) then you need to keep abreast of how the art is evolving and the methods others employ to express life and death in new ways. But again, I really despise keeping up with such stuff and it is very rare I find a writer who really says something to me.

Still, having said what I have, reading does sometimes become a joy, and occasionally more so. But only when the writing seems urgent and savage and somehow gets to the essence of everything you knew and didn't know was important.Then, reading almost becomes life. You learn more from your favourite writers than you do from living yourself.

Writers I enjoy (in no particular order )... Orwell, Bukowski, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde (not so much now but was the first writer to make me want to write) Roald Dahl (his childrens books have been a massive influence), Dostoevsky, Steinbeck, Burgess, Salinger, Jean Genet, George Bataille, Marquis de sade, Camus, Knut Hamsun, Fernando Pessoa (and friends!) W. B YEATS, Dylan Thomas, Hemingway... and surely many others who wrote everything except what I wanted to say.

Contemporary writers:

Orhan Pamuk, Brett Easton Ellis, Ben Okri, Dennis Cooper (certain similarities with Easton Ellis) Cormac McCarthy (may surprise people as he comes in for quite a bit of stick lot off criticism, but for me I learn how to write and push words on every page I read of his. A master stylist.) Tao Lin....



Just as important as writers are songwriters: Shane MacGowan, Leonard Cohen, Morrissey, Stuart Staples, Nick Cave, , Johnny Rotten, Johnny Thunders, a whole host of punk frontmen, Gainsbourg,... and so many others.

And then, the real important people: The Three Great Poets of my Life - all unknown, all illiterate, and neither of them ever having left a word behind on paper:..

Raymond Levene, Wardog and Lloyd.... the greatest literature and poetry came from these mens' mouths and minds. Always improvised, and always pumped full of life and tragedy and violence and nostalgia and death. Those three men there, especially the first, breathed raw poetry right into me.

As you can see from above I mostly read for style. In a way it's very normal as I learnt how to write from reading and not in english class. So it was always the writers who had very distinctive styles, words you could take apart and analyze... but more, words you could feel. I learnt to write through the rhythm of words, not through grammar. And that continues to this day. I don't think there is a writer above who isn't a stylist. It's why I very rarely finish a book from back to front. More often than not, by a third of the way through, I've learnt all I can from that particular writer. It's pointless to read on from there. To read to the finish would only be for the story, and stories have never really much interested me. The words which tell the story interest me: the poetry that holds the sentences up. Though of course, some writers, most i've mentioned above, their words dictate that you read to the finish and then want more. That's a natural consequence of someone having outrageous literary talent: you read the words, even if they lead nowhere, and you find worlds of knowledge between the story and in text. If a writer can hold you with just his words, then he's won. X

Anonymous said...

Poetical death thingie: words that bite and lick and spit, show us all the jewels and shit, flowing like a final breath: your view, your truth, your fucking death

itaintmebabe said...

This is one of my favourite things to read now, over and over and over again.
SO BEAUTIFUL
love Roya xxxx

Anonymous said...

I could never have done it justice, Shane.

I meant to say no but instead I said yes.

Soc

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Hey Soc, Oh, that's no problem... I understand and did say it was maybe a text I had to read myself. It's one of those rare texts which benefits from poor oratory skills, which becomes more intense because of a certain honesty in the voice. I'd have still liked to have heard your take on it though, but maybe follow your head and do the texts you really feel. I think I'll set up a separate 'audio' page on the site for all we've done and will do. With the little images I make or each text it'd be a nice addition to the site. X

Anonymous said...

fucking fantastic,,,,,are u sure u havent just followed me around the last few years and wrote my story,,,omg,,,its unreal,,,u must be an artist as well,,,,wait..u are :) poet ,musician, etc etc ,,,just mind blown...holy fuck

Anonymous said...

This has to be one of the addictive blogs I have ever read. I've been reading non stop for 3 days from start to finish. Your way with words and raw stories have me on the edge of my seat. Thank you for sharing.

Anonymous said...

V.G Both the oral and written version. You pick up different things from both.

Nice new graphics too. Not so sure about the teeth one.

Keep on writing x

Anonymous said...

V.G Both the oral and written version. You pick up different things from both.

Nice new graphics too. Not so sure about the teeth one.

Keep on writing x

Anonymous said...

Fucking thing published my comment twice. there's nothing so good I have to say that warrants that!!

Anonymous said...

'I started hinting at suicide, calling her up and saying “Goodbye” then, not taken at all seriously, blackmailing her outright with it. Those old tricks that I despised so much in my mother, that I'd promised I'd never repeat, I was now employing for the same ends.'
Tell me about it! My family has a long tradition of emotional blackmail. My father threatened suicide down the phone from my mums when I ran away from him at 14 if I didn't come back.
It's pretty scary though when you realise you've taken on the attributes you promised yourself you would never do but I'm inclined to think that if someone is in crisis and such emotional turmoil that's the despair it brings out.

In the words of Amy Winehouse; 'Help yourself':
But we all become what we once hated.

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Anon, I think if you reach 35, 40 or 50 and haven't grown up emotionally and still spurt out childish suicide threats at the earliest opportunity, then that person is very sad and very abusive. Young, 20's, first romance when you find yourself in the confusing twirl of love (opening line of text) that's one thing, but if with experience and maturity you still carry on that emotional blackmail it can only be expected that people will distance themselves from that. It's the same with becoming what we hate... that's not at all true for most people, and if you become what you hate then maybe act in a different way and don't do the things which you despise and which isolates you. It all goes back to the culture of blame, people pointing fingers at others for their faults and behaviours. Some people just always want to be seen as the 'abused' (indeed never stop going on about it) creating sob stories and changing history so as they are always the victim, so as it's always "Oh, poor you! come here baby!" Very sad and I despise that. If one can't tell the truth then don't tell any version of events. Certainly don't tell a version that makes you look like the innocent while monstering up someone else so as you get cuddled and cooed like a baby-adult. There are seriously self-centred people in this world, anon... be warned! In 15 years of heroin addiction, having given away thousands of pounds worth of smack, shared all my bags down the middle with anyone in the room with me, having even given my last toot on foils to other people, the only person to ever have given me a bag in return is a man who tried to infect me with HIV! And when I say "given" I'm not talking presents or gifts, I'm talking give me a bag/s unexpectedly and I give the cash back for it... that's always totally understood. Yet EVEN then,even when there is nothing to lose, people are too selfish and too self-centred to do it, surely absolutely possessed with the thought if by any slight chance the money didn't come through, or some other nonsense excuse after excuse to justify how corrupt by smack or crack they've become. I have no user friends, and after a lifetime of my mother threatening and trying suicide I do not support an iota of emotional blackmail. People disappoint me, but I refuse to give up and kill mu heart to life or change my own ways accordingly. That's a victory no selfish cunt will ever get over me. X

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Anon, I think if you reach 35, 40 or 50 and haven't grown up emotionally and still spurt out childish suicide threats at the earliest opportunity, then that person is very sad and very abusive. Young, 20's, first romance when you find yourself in the confusing twirl of love (opening line of text) that's one thing, but if with experience and maturity you still carry on that emotional blackmail it can only be expected that people will distance themselves from that. It's the same with becoming what we hate... that's not at all true for most people, and if you become what you hate then maybe act in a different way and don't do the things which you despise and which isolates you. It all goes back to the culture of blame, people pointing fingers at others for their faults and behaviours. Some people just always want to be seen as the 'abused' (indeed never stop going on about it) creating sob stories and changing history so as they are always the victim, so as it's always "Oh, poor you! come here baby!" Very sad and I despise that. If one can't tell the truth then don't tell any version of events. Certainly don't tell a version that makes you look like the innocent while monstering up someone else so as you get cuddled and cooed like a baby-adult. There are seriously self-centred people in this world, anon... be warned! In 15 years of heroin addiction, having given away thousands of pounds worth of smack, shared all my bags down the middle with anyone in the room with me, having even given my last toot on foils to other people, the only person to ever have given me a bag in return is a man who tried to infect me with HIV! And when I say "given" I'm not talking presents or gifts, I'm talking give me a bag/s unexpectedly and I give the cash back for it... that's always totally understood. Yet EVEN then,even when there is nothing to lose, people are too selfish and too self-centred to do it, surely absolutely possessed with the thought if by any slight chance the money didn't come through, or some other nonsense excuse after excuse to justify how corrupt by smack or crack they've become. I have no user friends, and after a lifetime of my mother threatening and trying suicide I do not support an iota of emotional blackmail. People disappoint me, but I refuse to give up and kill mu heart to life or change my own ways accordingly. That's a victory no selfish cunt will ever get over me. X

16 June 2014 23:42 Delete
Leave your comment

Here's your chance to curse, abuse or praise me... to send me kisses or death threats. There is comment moderation for spam only, no comments relating to the texts will be deleted (no matter how nice they are.) I will reply to most messages, though in the event of an untimely death it just will not be possible - apologies in advance.

As always, thanks for your time...

Shane. X



Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Anon, was waiting for yr reply just to do this: comment deleted not read.

Try getting a life, being honest, having a modicum of control over yr actions and not let heroin control you. Grow up. X

Unknown said...

It's the same with getting to be what we abhor... that is not under any condition valid for most individuals, and on the off chance that you get to be what you abhor then possibly act in an alternate manner and don't do the things which you disdain and which secludes you. Everything does a reversal to the society of accuse, individuals indicating fingers at others for their issues and practices. Some individuals simply constantly need to be seen as the "mishandled" (for sure never quit happening about it) making wail stories and changing history so as they are dependably the exploited person, so as its generally "Goodness, poor you! come here infant!" Very miserable and I scorn that. In the event that one can't come clean then don't tell any adaptation of occasions. Absolutely don't tell a form that makes you resemble the blameless while monstering up another person so as you get nestled and cooed like a child grown-up. http://halfwayhomes.org

heroin said...

Wonderful writing, so emotional and truthful. You see life all the way.

Memoirs of a Heroinhead said...

Thank you heroin. X It's probably more that I live life all the way. X

Tatiana said...

Genius! Is it possible for a heroin addict such as yourself to live until 80? Because i want to read you for the rest of my life.

Shane Levene said...

Hey ya Tatiana... 80? I doubt it My Darlin'... I think the world has almost had enough of me already. But there'll be a bit more writing yet and I've tons of archived stuff which i've not finished or am not too fond of which someone can publish post-mortem. So there'll be enough to keep you satisfied for a while and then after that you'll have to pleasure yourself! X