spiders

May 17, 2008 - 21:38 PM PST

--it's the little things, those precious details you cling to when you might be dying, that make you question whether this is success or defeat--

the right hand with ragged fingernails on the thumb and forefinger, cracked from too many minutes of clawing at a wall that doesn't exist.
the left ankle bleeding and raw from being scratched due to spiders that aren't visible to anyone else.
the pair of wandering feet that cannot get me off this goddamned second floor because my overdosed eyes cannot comprehend which floor i'm on.

--so many sensations dictate your breathing during an overdose. each body part is a pathetically ostracized kid on a shifting and shuddering playground--

is the blood running from my cuticles a hallucination or a reason to run to the hospital?
would i even make it to the hospital without being distracted by the streetlamps talking to me or tripping me maliciously?
where the hell are my teeth?

krystal put up with these questions for a total of eight hours. She was there through the giddy period, the dead-to-the-world-interrupted-by-blood-curdling-screams period, the hallucinatory period, and finally, the spiders.

when you are CONVINCED that your entire body, and the inside of your nostrils, ears, and eyes are crawling with spiders, there's precious little else on your mind other than how the fuck you're going to get RID of the spiders.
white spiders is how it started, crawling out of the sink in krystal's dorm room.
those were followed by small red spiders crawling up my legs from the carpet, but they never went beyond my knee-caps.
then came the black spiders, the ones that swarmed over my fingers, neck, temples, stomach, and the bottoms of my feet. i felt them cover my eyes and try to get into my mouth. when i wasn't clawing at my body, i was trying to wrap as many articles of clothing around my limbs as i could find.

after lying with my legs on the pull-out bed and my head on the floor reciting fight club and snatch or family guy and the simpsons, i cradled the cool porcelain of the second stall toilet, saying the lord's prayer over and over and over and over until it turned into the pledge of allegiance which in turn morphed into the apostle's creed. anything would do, even bits and pieces of star wars: a new hope found their way from behind my lips to the attentive water in the bottom of the bowl.

i don't want to know how many sad and lonely third-floor residents walked into the bathroom and felt better about their lives after seeing me in that condition.