My body is a canvas, neurosis upon neurosis sketched on my skin. The scabs and scars, a brand that belongs to you. Decrepit, degenerate, dilapidated, disgusting YOU. I try to make them fade, but you just laugh. You are smug in your knowledge that branding is permanent and that I must always fight to resist the origins. Everyone can read those markings and know the roads that I travelled and that you think I will follow back to you. But you never thought I'd turn that brand into my escape, my rebellion and vow to never come back to you. I spent weeks memorizing every scratch, scar and hole as they ate deep trough my soul. Only when the blisters broke did I finally drain you from my life.

The rope burns from where you tried to hang me, where you left me twisting in the wind...dancing to accomodate your will. It is not how high will I jump but rather, how much farther can I fall? How much lower can I slide for you?

It has been 2 weeks and 2 days that I have been living on the floor beneath the sink and looking under the stove at piles of rodent droppings. A couple blankets, a pillow and a radio. The ceiling is chipping. The tv is always on but the reception is awful, and no one notices, they aren't really watching it anyway. The phone is always ringing but at least it is warm.

Every morning it is the same...sick, sick, sick, sick. Everyone is passed out, can't wake anyone up so I sit in the bathroom crying and barfing my head off. You come to me with a soup container and a glass pipe and offer to make me feel better. Rooms spin, everything everywhere is echoing. The smallest sound is deafeningly LOUD. My own heartbeat scares me. But you don't give me what I really need, instead you give me a list of places, things and people. I want my own powder but there is only enough to sell. What I take now you will make me pay for double. So I run and twist and turn and hustle until I have nothing left and I need you even more.

I think that there is nothing I wouldn't do to have the luxury of paying you off, to avoid the unmitigated joy of doing you favors. I thought that everything was free, but the price has become too high. I am trying to write you out of my life as if you were a villain in a movie. For some reason, it isn't working. Pages have piled up and still you are very much right here. What do I have to do to make you go?

I will never forget the day I turned the page...one foot in front of the other and I left you behind. Everything that used to bring me back to you, now makes me more determined to stay away. I've never been more happy to owe you.