Chasing a Vein

 

I spent twelve-hour shifts
Hunting a vein
Like ghost hunts warmth.

Needle in.
Needle out.
Again.
And again.
And again.

There is no romance to this story.
Only the repetition of damage
Only the way addiction
Teaches you to hollow yourself out
And call it living.

Not chasing a high—
Chasing a vein
Begging my body
To open a door
It had already boarded shut.

Forty-four years.
Forty-four years
Of plunging
Of trading veins for moments
Until even my body said
There is nothing left to give.

So, I went everywhere else

Spaces between fingers
Along the bony ankle
Neck
Groin.

Anywhere skin still whispered
Maybe
Anywhere pain could be mistaken
For permission.

I shot into places
Meant to be protected
The delicate veins in the palm
Places no one talks about
Dark blue veins under the tongue
Places shame learns to live.

I locked myself in rooms
With death in a syringe
And a handless clock.

On the other side of the door
My daughter was knocking

Banging

Crying

Calling my name
Like my name was a rope
And she was falling.

“Mama”

“Mama, open the door.”

And I sat on the floor
With blood on my hands
And a needle in my arm
Choosing the chemical
Over the child.

I sat in rooms where blood was currency
Where strangers passed around
Each other’s life in a syringe
Where survival looked like
Someone else’s vein
Someone else’s pulse
Someone else’s risk.

Bruised
My arms became evidence
Lost
My skin became memory
My veins became extinct.

And still
Here I am.

A body that should have been empty
Still breathing.

A mother who failed
And lived anyway.

I lost everything, yet
My pulse throbs
Like a vein
In shattered glass.

I am not clean glass
I am broken glass.

I am still here.

And that is the beginning.

Tina Laney is a student at San Carlos Apache College.