Home >> January, 2008
Jan 28 2008

Snowflakes (Scholarship Essay; English IV AP)

Filed under: Essays

Downy powder drifting aimlessly – a beautiful peril, blocking roads, latching on to synapse-receptors.

C21H23NO5. Branching, tenuous chains of carbon and hydrogen, laced ever-so delicately with nitrogen and oxygen. The formula for unadulterated rapture. Injected frost or inhaled snowflakes.
Heroin, beginning its tumultuous course.
Cold and numbing, particles of 3, 6-diacetyl morphine ester, crystallized as a hydrochloride to ease consumption, transmute rapidly into monoacetylmorphine – a false endorphin – upon hasty contact with an anticipation-laden brain.

Lewis Carroll, inspired through the power of LSD, wrote Alice in Wonderland – a tacit endorsement of the psychedelic hallucinogen. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley proposed the mind-boggling, spirit-draining lethargy of recreational soma. In Dune, Frank Herbert introduced mélange, an alien and prescience-enhancing spice, similar to opium in its addictive potency, and distinguishable by its roughly cinnamon-y scent and the trademark blue-in-blue eyes of addicts. These drugs were coveted for their power to impose an alternative reality, to pro-offer transcendence.

In contrast, it is the illusory, but grounded, euphoria that results from absorption of Heroin into the bloodstream that secures it a lofty and permanent grasp on its devotees, impressing them psychologically and physiologically. Heroin initiates instinctively cling to ritual – shooting up in the same ragged alleys, worn bathtubs, or crowded cafeterias to refine the high. After exposure, physiochemical addiction requires only a handful of days, and in each dose the drug’s impact is near-instantaneous, with only a few seconds to a few minutes before arrival of the opioid rush.

First marketed as a panacea for morphine addicts, Heroin was originally sold by Bayer, the pharmaceutical corporation that piloted aspirin, to an unknowing and unsuspecting populace. To the company’s chagrin, though the new drug invoked indefatigable courage, it only aggravated the addiction – once in the liver, heroin metabolized into an acetylated, augmented version of morphine twice as potent as its predecessor.

Since then, it has become a widely popular and illicit medium (a schedule I substance, according to the U.S. Controlled Substances Act of 1970) for injection among thrill-seekers worldwide. Rarely, it is offered as a very limited-access prescription painkiller.

Of itself, diacetylmorphine isn’t lethal, unless taken in excess. But the Heroin dealt on the streets is often of murky consistency, and duplicity is expectedly rampant among slumlords. When impurities are present, or when Heroin is synthesized with other depressants, the drug yielded is less stable and more prone to overdose and adverse side effects.

Withdrawal, too, is agonizing, but not fatal. Malaise, vomiting, anxiety, depression, and fever can set in within the first day of abstinence. To reduce symptoms, most addicts are gradually weaned from Heroin to methadone or diazepam – opioids with less strength.

So it comes to be that shivering from the goose bumps of discontinuation, the glorious snowfall of Heroin finally melts.

Jan 27 2008

Coexist

Filed under: Uncategorized

We must, will and do
Coexist
But only when it suits you
We must, will and do
Cooperate
A pretense for espionage
We must, will and do
Coexist
But I might prefer loathing.

Jan 26 2008

Empty Chair

Filed under: Social Commentary

There is an empty chair between us
Not quite so empty, after all
There is an empty chair –
A barrier
An empty chair that should be there,
However much I hate it.

Jan 21 2008

Acceptance

Filed under: Uncategorized

I’ve accepted
The way it is.
I’ve accepted
The way you made it.
I’ve accepted
New friends.
I’ve accepted,
And I made no exception
For you.

Jan 21 2008

Different Now?

Filed under: Uncategorized

Is it different now?
Reading this
Knowing I know
That you are looking?
Is it different now
Reading this
Knowing I know
What you are thinking?
Is it different now
Reading this?
Because I have always known
You were looking,
And I could always predict
Your thoughts.
Is it different now
For you?
Because writing it
Feels the same.

Jan 21 2008

Talk to Me

Filed under: Uncategorized

Talk to me.
Not Scott
Not Banks
Not Nikita
Not Ranjani
Talk to me
The most important person
Ever to enter your life
Talk to me
Your salvation
Your temptation
Your love
Talk to me.

Jan 19 2008

This is Right

This is right.
Irrevocably, inescapably, inevitably.
Exactly how it’s supposed to be
Without the perfection.
This is is right.
Exactly how it’s supposed to be
Give or take a few major excerpts.
This is right.
Exactly how it’s supposed to be
Except
Not quite.

Jan 16 2008

Unobtrusively

Filed under: Poetry

I don’t think about it
I don’t talk about it
But it’s there
The unspoken fact
A fluorescent paean
Humming unobtrusively
Beneath my conversation
It’s there
But it’s manageable.

Jan 14 2008

My Steering Wheel

My steering wheel alone
Knows what I am dying to shout
The whisper I settle for
At least someone has said it
At least its true
At least I know
You and I and my steering wheel
The only confidant
Sure to keep my confidence
In this tangle of mutual friends.

Jan 08 2008

How Stupid Am I?

Filed under: Uncategorized

I love you.
But I shouldn’t, you fool.
Love is too strong a word for a hopeful might-be
I like you.
But I hate you more often.
Figures.