untold injury

I spend the last minutes of consciousness contemplating my own death. Is the oven off? What if the heater starts a fire? What if there's spontaneous combustion? As I sleep, I dream of a watery playground. Frolicking with sealife in motionless blue waves. I don't need air. I start my day needing a boost. Sugar, caffeine, heroin, crack, not really but something. I need a boost. The phone rings. I wait five rings before the woman's monotone voice pleasantly asks for the caller to leave a message. Then there's nothing. I think they know about me. Paranoid delusions suffocate me. Depriving me of oxygen like a fire stealing my life force. The back of my shoulders shudder as the last bits of medicine leave my system. Like floating butterflies startled by a prowling housecat. The blackness last left me in high school with that last hit of acid. Lying on the lemon yellow couch, waiting for a voice to pull me out, stretching its hand into the swirling and spinning of beautiful dirt tossed on my head. Sticky sweat held my hair close. It was only 10pm but it seemed like a million. Even earlier, the touch to my clammy flesh was a new sensation. Even alone, I was surrounded. Then they leave, one by one.