D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (Intravenously Driven)

  On this particular day I made my presence known at school, and so my 'good' attendance resulted in me being arrested on my first felony charge.  All of these ridiculous avenues I aimlessly sought out were slowly creating a monster. I was a sad little child taking on false burdens. I clearly had no fucking idea how to simply just be happy, much less how to even pursue it. When I strived towards perfection my sense of life was even more jacked up than when I did drugs. I was a complete mess.  How else could I spice up the doldrums that I perceived as a constant part of my reality.  Drugs were the simplest answer to it all, to everything, and I say everything because they seemingly solved any and every of the perceivable situation, grand or minute. These difficulties were usually nothing to an emotionally mature individual, but these were all my own subjectively giant burdens. I chose to depressingly attach myself to those imaginary worries, and then I owned them outright.  I had now been routinely chomping down on four blue valiums in the morning binded along some weed at minimum, and then as the day ensued I ate more and more losing track of everything that was going on around me. I even crushed the valium up and laced them into my marijuana cigs. I was a freakin' doped up lunatic, but hey I was anxiety free for the most part, until sooner usually than later I would find myself caught up into some idiotic jam, and 'fuck it' if consequences ever resulted. What better way to deal with and forget about any of those consequences but with more drugs? It would take many years to figure out any 'better way,' and this wiser alternative outsiders could perceive as common sense, it was so obvious to everyone but me. Rational thoughts I couldn't seem to ever conceive of on my own. However, nothing over the course of the next decade-plus would grab my attention better than GOD, and boy did I ignore HIM until my brain felt as raw and shiny as a crocodile hide.
       There I was passed out again in class, drooling like a half-witted loon all over my desk, and here is  Mr. Rodando (aka  Senor Robo-3000), who was called in again to wake me from another regular peaceful drug slumber by my poor teacher.  This was a typical scene from the beginning of my junior year, getting really doped before school, and then awakened by one of the three fine assistant principals of Keller High. In every instance this had gone down very similar as it did on this particular day, except on this day Mr. Rodando took some action involving my suspension from school. I often wonder why they hadn't deemed me qualified as being 'under the influence' enough to not be suspended on those recent previous occasions when I was awoken by the Mr. Rodando. I was pilled out every other time to where it was most obvious something seriously drug-related was interfering with my brain. Well I am now certain that it has to have been a  subtle combination of  two plausible explanations why I wasn't suspended before in those earlier incidents. In order to satisfy my infantile imaginings that frequently became quite exhausted I soon realized it was simple. The night that preceded this mornings encounter with Mr. Rodono I had used a needle for the first time. I had no damn clue what I was doing but I was determined to expand my horizons radically beyond to where that brought me looped through inside some drug-induced worm-hole. I was so insanely inclined to drugs that I had set out to shoot up ketamine (a cat-tranquilizer that is referred to as Special K by druggies). One of my friends worked at an animal clinic and as I was skimming pills off the shelfs from the pharmacy, he pulled vials of ketamine from this veterinarians stocked supply room, and then we engaged in some good old- fashioned bartering. Now I had drank this stuff in it's liquid form, snorted, and smoked it in it's powdered form, but I had yet to do it right. I didn't even have the proper equipment for the job. The needle I used was huge and I had never done this before so I didn't know anything about inter-venously shooting any substance. Luckily what little innocence I had left probably saved my damn life because I ended up 'skin-popping' accidentally before I even knew what that term even meant. When a junky has abused his veins for an extended matter of years at a time day after day than one must resort to doing a 'muscle shot,' and what I had done that night wasn't even considered a muscle shot. I merely injected a giant bubble under  my skin in my hand, and I now realize it was most likely a very dangerous amount. If I had directly bumped that shit it would have immediately invaded my bloodstream, and I am most certain I would be dead. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I effectively passed out where I sat, on this small sectional couch that I had in my room as a teenager. All I remember was waking up to the sound of my Dad's fist beating the locked door in the morning quite  frustrated. His frustration was justified more and more everyday due to my total lack of respect, boy I was the anti-thesis of a respectable young man. Im sure it took me a good minute to wake from those loud noises manufactured by my angered father on the other side of my bedroom door. Who knows where his imagination went every time I had that door locked. A year or so later my parents resorted to taking the damn doors of the hinges for a brief period of time after feeling quite defeated in dealing with my teenage madness. I would eventually hear my father's commotion and rouse myself from my stupor, pop some more pills, roll a joint, and then head to school. Little did I know  before the day's end I would be in juvenile hall.

      

A DIMMER SWITCH SPLIT

 Oscillating those ties that often pattern random fabrications,

 I watched as she talked proudly about her delicately fostered dreams,

 I listened to myself brag and utter non-sense in a small decorated confidence,

 I calmed myself with subtle stainless steel reserve,

 I heard her breath draw deep before I felt it's created heat,

 In the summer's slot she rocked back gently caught,
 
 In the summer's slot I lounged in the den every night until a half-past ten,

We contemplated the years that pursued plenty spent,

Referring casually to those lofty revelations,

We decided our motives were to preciously precise,

And so with those novel fears we resolutely said our good-byes...

D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (Restless Small Town Pigs, Make for Restless Small Town Dope Monkeys)

The last episode I wrote about resulted in the cops apprehending us skipping school. "What are ya'll doing out there in that field," I remember them asking us. We simply made up some bullshit explanation about how we were out there fishing at the stock pond.  "Where are y'alls fishing poles," they returned. That stumped us, but it really didn't make much of a difference. We had ample time to stash the weed under some brush as soon as we had realized that they had arrived off in the distance by our parked vehicles.  We walked across the field, back towards them and our cars, meeting them as far away from the initial 'scene' where we had been smokin' weed.  They made a feeble attempt to go and wander around a bit in the field searching for any tossed 'dope', but their energies were wasted in vain having not found what they were searching for. They talked to us for awhile and searched our pockets and cars. They did not find any drugs that they seemed to always assume we had in our possession, 24/7.  They didn't issue us truancy tickets, but they did notify the principals that we were skipping class that day. Ultimately we had to serve a few detentions. All of us got known very quickly by the small town cops, so from then on we readily assumed that whenever stopped we had damn well better be prepared for a search. I would get pulled over frequently in Keller as a teenager and be immediately asked very bluntly, "Are there any dope or guns in the vehicle," and I always replied, "no sir," trying to muster up a respectable tone while thinking guns?  What the fuck, I was thought, I may be guilty of carrying drugs but guns? Really? I definitely deserved a mass majority of the treatment I received as a teenager by the local officials, but these cops, as with any small town cops, really did have way to much time on their hands. My pill thievery from the pharmacy I had been working at during the first month of my junior year was growing more and more reckless, and I was about to have some major consequences reign down upon me. I would be arrested on my first of the three felonies a week later. All three were accumulated before the age of twenty-four.

D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (Schools' for Fools)

The chemical backlash from my job at the pharmacy was obscene.  I had a whole new arsenal of drugs to abuse.  As with any drugs that are in my possession, these pills I couldn't seem to keep from consuming constantly. The valium was such a new wonder to me. I tried this drug, loved its affects, and from then on naively relied on it in everything I did. If I had any kind of stash it wouldn't last, there was no need for me to refrain from eating all of them in an insanely short period of time.  That first month in my venture with pills I was all over the place. Much of these days were simply erased from my memory, however,  many of them I do remember.  One day after dropping my little bro' off at school I met up with some friends miles away, absent from our classrooms. The usual gang consisted of Daniel, Tyler , Eddie, Jeremy, Brad,  or Toni. Interchange one for another at anytime it didn't matter, we were always doing the same old shit, whether there were two or ten present we all shared in the common goal of getting high. On this particular day the majority of us were all together. We meet up on the outskirts of town, in a neighborhood not to far from the street where I grew up. This housing development was adjacent to acres and acres of undeveloped land, that then was primarily used for cattle grazing. We parked our vehicles at the dead end of a street that granted us easy access to those vast fields.  We ventured about a half mile deep into the field, which involved traipsing thru a resident's yard and over a short barbed wire fence that bordered their land and the field. Our destination was a stock pond, where we could smoke pot and fish during the day, or at night after drinking too much liquor we might go out there to shoot off fireworks, which always lead to firing them off at each other.

      "Dude I hope none of those fuckers call the cops on us," I crudely expressed my concerns ('fuckers' had become a very dominant word in my vocabulary used to describe anything and everything without hesitation), the 'fuckers' I was referring to there were anyone that lived on that street who may have seen us trespassing through their neighbors front yard, along their driveway, through their back yard , and into the pasture beyond.

     "I know but shit at least we will have time to stash the bud if they come, we just gotta keep a look-out." Eddie replied.

    "The way we came through really is the only way cops can come through to get to us," Daniel added. This paranoia was truly thrilling in a way when I think back on it, we were living on the edge, breaking minor laws everyday, and getting away with more and more everyday.

    There we were all huddled together hittin' the weed pipe, what a glorious day it was! All that talk about the cops was merely teenage drama to mull over, something to bullshit about, we really weren't too concerned. It was just cool to jabber on about how much of 'rebels' we were. 

    " Fuck the police!" I blurted out simultaneously as I blew out a hit of bud, adding that unique choked up tone to mix my words with. I passed that shit to my left and then asked adding, "Anyone going back for second period today?"

      "Yea I gotta go in and take a quiz," Daniel said.

      "Cool man I can drop you back off," I replied.

      "Watch out for Sparky dude, he might recognize your ride and report your dumb-ass to Mr. Rodando," Toni remarked. Sparky was a student-given nickname which we used to refer to this poor, skinny, old security guard in charge of cars coming and going from the student parking lot. Man did the students  stress him out with our endless parade of shenanigans.   

       "Yea like you give a fuck since you dropped out," I retorted.

       "Dude Rodando is such a weird fucker. You know he got us good last week," Tyler broke in after a deep moment of blankly staring into the distance, interrupting the direction of the conversation. 

       "Yea he sure did," I chimed in.
        Tyler was referring to our encounter with him in trying to sneak back into the school after skipping the first half of the school day "Yea I mean how are we supposed to even make some of our classes if we are scared of getting back in. I might as well just skip the whole damn day," I added my backwards justification because ultimately we got caught up one way or another by school official's in the end.

         "He's such a  weird robot lookin' fucker," Eddie threw in, to explain this description of his appearance one would have to have known and seen his physical appearance mixed with his posture, and mannerisms to fully grasp what Eddie meant, "So he got you dumb-fuckers huh? Thats great! I love that fuckin robot!" Eddie then started a string of laughs that continued for a solid thirty seconds.

       "What the fuck!" I burst out very loudly. "Dude the cops are coming, look! Theres' two fucking cops, hide that shit somewhere!" I said to Tyler who had the pipe and the weed. Everyone thought I was just fucking around at first, but sure enough one of the the residents had  called the Keller police on us. 

          

    

    

II. Vain Attempts at Understanding (poetry from high school)

My canopy is usually above me,

continued protection from heaving rains,

I adore my lush greenery,

tranquility is breeding in the forested landscape,

animals lie asleep,

and at times flourish in heat,

the whole scenery does give it to me,

that final feeling of much favored security,

but at the same hour a breeze,

a slightly different breeze,

will plainly throw the plans,

every and all plans-

even the master plan,

off its' mounted pedestal,

now solely relying on reconstruction.

Those Smiles Detail This Day's Significance

 To be bent on chaos is simply a cry for You,
 to lavish myself insanely denies myself of You,
 rinsed lies fence that place I called home,
 through You alone my soul is nourished,
 soaking rays outside confines of the world,
 loving You I contently lose any disillusioned deservings,
 a true relationship is the sole wealth I treasure,
 those smiles detail this day's significance.

Sauntering Snowbird

Saunter in like a Snowbird swooping down off a hovering drift,
count the crazies on one hand and you have found zen,
treading with snow chains on and solve sloping slowly,
be calm boldly and exude awesomeness daily.

RENT A MARBLE PAPER WEIGHT

I tried to make it to the show,

the dude down the street got me all caught up,

he wanted what I had left last month, 

and I needed what he passed over every stirring moment,

today we watched the girl upstairs rearrange her furniture,

over and over again......

She built the window to be a wall,

so the mail always arrived late,

her girlfriend came over to linger crowding every afternoon,

here she is now,

shot swift she passes a caravan of sedans,

then down shifts and whips her Mazda thru to the alley.....

Our brothers ran an ad on Craig's list,

offering to purchase notes of wisdom that might glisten shiny when attached to spokes,

they rode their bikes through the camp sites of strangers,

post-it notes flew through falling with the leaves,

their wisdom was ignited to roast marsh-mellows ....

Her ideas flaunted the fact that she never grew too soon,

I meet her in the future where basements cage towers,

my feelings were singed,

but she never would justify such a trip....

POETRY JUNKY

I cling to this air,
it climbs and follows my legs up these hills,
chilled it encourages yet disturbs my sense of being,
so I continue this climb concrete,
and this climb swampy and bogged down,
sometimes struggling like an over-burdened donkey,
and at other times I sing and hover like an angel.

Monkey Word Play

The cedar burned through midnight's haven,
they risked capture east of the valley,
cautious and depressed they slept slouched,
entrenched below those aloof billows,
this smoke lounged and lingered bold,
and rose,
fumes that invaded their dreams....


 

Monkeying Around in the Pharmacy

     The old white tiled floors in the pharmacy were in desperate need of a dope monkey's efficiently rhythmic  sweeping mojo, and I won't hesitate to brag when it comes to my sweeping abilities. I am a bad mamba jamba with a broom, any shape any size or quality, it doesn't matter much.  I believe the two jobs I had prior to the pharmacy(keep in mind that I am still 16  yrs old as junior year begins)  were mowing neighbors lawns that began around age 12, and after that I got a job at 15, as a bus-boy in a local all-u-can-eat pizza place which I lost (would be re-hired off and on there over the next few years) due to my spontaneous excursion to the west coast that  previous summer.  A new saga rooted by this fresh line of pharmaceutical work was about to unfold. The bliss from discovering new drugs were continually being launched into new cosmic levels of giddiness as I experimented with various multitudes of whatever  drugs you want to imagine exists.  It was quite normal that I would show up  to the pharmacy blazed off my ass, I worked the front counter's cash register, and I managed to just get by for about a month or so here at this particular job. I could've stolen money from the till, but that wasn't what I was interested in, I was dead set on the drugs.  Every night as the minutes were breaching forward, slugging towards the store's closing hour, began to warp parallel with time's sweet pace into a swift  gallop full ahead, I was about to hit another chemical-time-space trifecta,  because my floor sweeping duties were right around the bend! The standard wall clock's plain boring and uniformly black hands were made into something fantastically  spectacular to me simply because I knew 'what time it was!'  In my dope-addled mind this ignited a feverish excitement as my imagination coursed images of the vast selection of pilled-out aisles that I would soon be exploring.  Each night I was given a span of ten to twenty minutes which really depended on how I paced my broom-men-ship.  My opportunity had come, and it came over and over again with each shift I worked.  Each pill stolen ten more were added the next shift, whole bottles were then added, I couldn't contain my greed. This was an overwhelming paradise that any dope fiend couldn't possibly manage properly.  The first day I worked there I was given this task since I was the new guy, and naturally it became one of my regular closing duties. I  never had to seem over-eager because no one else wanted to do it, and so it naturally fell upon me. I loved it!  I was given this shit task and secretly celebrated inside every time.  By this point in my life I had drank plenty of times, smoked a hell-a weed, tried coke, tripped on a lot of acid, but hadn't yet gotten into pills very much. I remember having to ask this chic who was a senior which particular pills were the most recreational, therefore I could narrow down what I was looking for during my twenty minutes of sweep time. She told me to look for Valiums, Soma, and some others. The others I don't remember mainly because I know I tried them and quickly realized that they weren't recreationally cohesive to the chemicals I really enjoyed. Thank God she didn't mention oxycontin or any of the other opiates that I learned about years later.  If she had I may have gotten strung out on opiates a year or so earlier. This year was especially  dedicated to Valium and Soma, and it  took over my life very quickly. Valiums basically made me feel inasanly drunk and I would binge on them for days. Some people would pass out once they ingested benzos (valiums, klonipns, Xanax, are some of the commonly abused benzos, I would get into the others later that year) but I was a maniac that stayed up mixing them with weed and alcohol, frying up food at three in the morning, passing out with peanut butter and tortillas, or be seen running naked down the street underneath the pitch black sky.  My skinny teenage body illuminated by headlights of some very surprised cars that passed by. They also began my deep run of trips to jail that occurred usually at least once every couple of months, and every now and then I would make two trips in a week. This newly found pharmaceutical grade intoxicant also began my visits to the hospitals. I specifically remeber one day that my mom tried in a new strategy in all of her frustrating attempts to get me to straighten up. She brought me to a drug and alcohol counselor in order to get me some help. I was such a smart-ass know-it that I frustrated her and she told my mom and I that eventually I would experience jails, hospitals, or death. The worst scenario would consist of me causing another to die if I didn't get my shit together.  I totally ignored any advice or warnings continuously over and over again for too many years, and in the same strange measure it was the correct amount of time for me to experience enough pain to where eventually I would truly hunger for God. My compulsive need to alter my reality was insane, what would it take for me to change? Many years of being dealt the same consequences for my rampages, and then the omnipotent intervening hand of God.  In a disturbingly desperate state I simply had to cry out to HIM, and oh how HE knew my heart.  It was a sad heart but one that still maintained this foreign flavor of hope which still lingered, a taste that longed for a deeper purposed life than the hedonistic state to which I was currently enslaved.

THIS MONKEY'S LEGEND IS BORN

As my junior year ensued, to the depths of dope depravity I pursued, and so I was desperately determined to ingest any combination of chemicals that might save my brain from the dancers in my head.  Marijuana was like magic and so I sought to inhale the minimal amounts of oxygen necessary to sustain consciousness, saving the remainder lung capacity for hitting that ganja.  I loved  drinking beers for brunch, and eating acid for dinner.  My attendance was slacking, I had the old school rouse of staying during the attendance count and then slipping out un-detected perfected, or so I thought. Those damn teachers had it out for me from the beginning, and I couldn't blame them. When I was in class I usually slept.  My reputation had been overblown into an ultra-ghetto stereo-type of a druggy.  This image was exaggerated before it was due, two years prior. My status as a burned out dope monkey grew phenomenally my freshman year, and all from a shitty wooden tobacco pipe my buddy Daniel had stolen from a smoke shop in the mall called Tobacco Lane. Daniel and I shared second period, Word Geography Class together, and the teacher, Mr. Thompson, was strict but overall pretty damn cool in hindsight. I remember he strived so hard to merely convert everyone into focusing on obtaining if nothing else in life, our high school diploma, at bare minimum. He use to have this saying, "You can smoke dope and live on a motorboat, but as long as you have your high school diploma they can never take that away from you!" (and of course I never did get my high school diploma, I was too cool for school and settled for the General Equivalence Diploma). Daniel decided un-wisely to smuggle this pipe into class to show me and a classmate, Everett.  Everett was already an expert in the fancy ways of the stoner at the fair age of fifteen, and so we sought out his advice on this particular smoking device. On this day there happened to be a substitute teaching for Mr. Thompson, it was some lady sub, I don't remember much about her except that she totally busted our monkey asses. Either she believed we were cheating on a quiz or being disruptive as we just chatted away about this pipe. Something caused us to draw her attention at this point, and so she strolled over and caught Matt with the pipe in hand holding it under his desk. She called for one of the assistant principals to come down and drag him out and detain him in his office. Next entered the sidekick, the second assistant principal, Mrs. Gilvery, she was our school's own tall, short yellow-haired, big bird lookin' female principal. She went and whispered into the sub's ear and then looked our way, and called for Daniel to come down to the office. Ten minutes later I was next! Mr. Attaway, the dude assistant principal was trying his damnedest to obtain a confession that we were planning on smoking pot, and I don't even know what this would have accomplished. Did he believe we would lead him to a huge stash of drugs, and then to a gang of fifteen year old armed drug dealers as well? It sure did seem that way in how determined he was in interrogating us. We stuck to the story that we had some pipe tobacco at home, and persisted in our explanation that this was all we had been intending to put in this pipe and smoke.  They had nothing on us really, the pipe was brand new, it never even had tobacco smoked out of it. I remember that our parent's were notified, and I ultimately just embarrassed and shocked my parents once again, but tobacco was the least of their concerns at this point in time. Over the next twelve years they would sadly develop a dramatically jaded attitude towards my dope-addled troubles. Slowly in them grew this sick tolerance,  their reactions had become ever-changing. I do know that the number one consequence of this episode from my freshman year had catapulted this image of me immediately into a different realm to all who heard this story of us getting caught at school with a pipe. A week later I learned that my classmates had convoluted this story into something extremely beyond what the truth was. The rumor going around was that I was caught with a crack-pipe on campus. This shitty status surrounded me even years after highschool and lingers in the atmosphere of my hometown even to this day. It didn't help that I added reality to this rumor.  High school shifted swiftly by as mere background in this life's revolving fixtures, eventually I would smoke crack, and I realized it didn't produce the euphoria I hungered for. The dope finale for this monkey's hedonistic craze meant heroin.

wordplay poem to exercise this monkeys brain

We train those bends to sing those cries, 
those strains of sound native madness, 
those saturated fountains, 
those densely shrouded curtains, 
hills slid west in this azure autumn age, 
the trees shuddered, and ran this course shifting through our last parade,
watch wildly those shock rendered, 
pop-trended, 
raisin branded, 
slick-slanted,
savor flavor jive.

THIS MONKEY IS BACK!!!! (back to school with his little bro along for the ride too)

The August heat in Texas swelters to the simmering sun's cry. I was back at Keller High School, and I don't think the staff was quite prepared for the antics I had in store for them that year. Jincos were the jeans to be seen wearing, pagers were more prevalent than cell phones, and LSD was more popular than Ectasy is now, at least in this monkey's part of town. I had that old 85' Toyota Celica back in my possession, my vehicle which I handled usually somewhat intoxicated, and it had a sun-roof to facilitate efficient ventilation that might clear out any smells that could land my ass in jail.  Again I was getting away with so much madness, but this would all eventually get me caught up,  over and over again. Most of my crimes were petty offenses, like "Missy Misdemeanor' (the name Missy Elliot original went by), except I wasn't a chic, but I was gangsta', not really but I thought I was a quite the badass. I was a  little monkey heathen. This story reveals  a picture of day one of my junior year in high school back in 1998. This day was also day one of my brother, Aaron's freshman year, and he was about to experience high school the 'badass' way, like his big brother. I was up freshly showered, clean and ready with more than an hour to spare before that initial morning bell rang at 7:30 a.m.  This glorious scheduled ringing  sounded all over America signifying that all us little teenage monkeys needed to hurry and usher into class.
"Aaaarrrooon lets get going! If you want a ride with me you need to come on!" I belted out my demands over the noise of the shower.
"I am almost done dude, what the hell is your problem? We got way enough time," Aaron replied in confusion, but he was smart and figured it out quick,"so I guess you got plans before school starts, huh?"
"Just hurry yea we are going to stop at Eddie's, meeting up with my boys, you should feel special I'm even letting you come." I was such a dick head to my lil' bros but they knew how to engage with verbal jabs right back at me.
"Man Isaac you are such a jackass, Im gettin out right now."
"Okay I hope you got your best blouse ready for school  princess...... Lets go, come on shit-terd!"

I walked outside of my house and looked up at the grey smattered sky, a humid clad dawn available for me to stare into its abyss, to wonder how good I could get myself feeling this early in the morning. I had to be in stoned mode without drawing to much attention to myself in school. In that fashion and many other ways I am a walking contradiction, I love attention and yet I always wanted to fly underneath authority's punishing radar. I was a nonsensical dope maniac. My dad came outside and asked me why we were leaving so early for school. I told him that we were going to get Mc Donalds before school, and he didn't inqiure any further. If only he knew what went on when I left for school, and how much school I actually attended. He would find out off and on that I had been skipping school plenty. Aaron sauntered out and hopped into my car. We were off and Aaron's expression signified that he realized that I had something adventerous planned but he wasn't exactly sure. I drove quick and proud, cut through some back roads and came up where Florence Rd. tees at Ottinger, I hopped out and ran behind a road sign that marked where I had stashed the remnants of an 18 pack of Budweiser.
"What? So you are going to drink beer at 630 in the morning Isaac.... really?" Aaron didn't seemed to understand.
"Yea this is how I wake up man, so I was only half lying to Dad, this is my Mc Donalds," I cracked open a warm beer and downed it, then cracked another one. I had to drink them quick because of my time constraints. "Lets go smoke some weed!" I cackled like just another dumb teenage stoner on a mission, and with the beer in hand and the gear shift in another, my knee restraining the steering wheel as not to veer off course from my destination. I charged the gas pedal with my foot and we were off.
I made it past all the areas of Keller I could have been spotted by the local cops and as we pulled into Eddies's neighborhood I was ready, but was Aaron? I really didn't intend for him to participate, I only really cared about how much weed I could smoke, so selfishly if he part-took the it simply meant in my fiendish head, less for me. However, all of my peers in high school seemed top display the stereotypical attitudes of young party animals. We parked amongst five recognizable as being my friend's rides, I grinned at Aaron as we hopped out like a smart-ass. "Don't let them pressure you into anything you wouldn't normally do Aaron," I tried to warn him, but as I was saying my friends were some peer-pressuring jack asses. It was on!...  as soon as we tramped thru Eddie's house, opened the back patio's sliding door, and the scene swamped my emotions to break into a pothead antics.
"Whats up myyyyy niiggggaaasss!"
"Whatsup Burnes.... Its Burney Snow and little Burns is with him, what up Aaron!" Eddie welcomed us, and there was the collective close bunch of my friends that I mainly drank, smoked weed, tripped acid, and skipped much school with in order to divulge in these activities in some balanced time. In a mangled circle next to Eddie going clockwise was Daniel, Toni, Tyler, and Jeremy. A macgyver styled j-funky-rigged up as a make shift steam roller pipe was passed to me and then I returned it to Eddie completeing one round of a grand marijuana passage.
"Hey Aaron you got to hit this dude!" he said and everyone  convincingly added, "Yea bro don't be a pussy," yelped the chorus of red-eye-ripped to the hilt monkeys that chimed there song and dance of peer pressure, and so Aaron got high with us. He already pretty popular amongst the peers in his own class, so now he could brag about chillin' with some upper class-men. Later on he informed me he got so dizzy in his first peiod class that he had to excuse himself, so the first day for him in high school he had to spend laying down for awhile in the bathroom in order to collect himself, after throwing up. It seemed funny then but I now feel a bit guilty, but it happened and he turned out to be very spiritually sound regardless of that negative influence that my friends and I might have been guilty of. I went to school for some of that first day, really after that first week it was a struggle to go at all. Can you believe I was once the kid with perfect attendance all throughout my school career up all the way through junior high. I guess I just couldn't do it anymore, I couldn't be that 'above and beyond' perfectionist anymore that once had defined me. The less school I attended the more drugs I could ingest, that was the perfect balance I believed I could achieve as a teenage monkey. I know it makes no sense when you think of an objective definition of a balanced life, but in my own subjectively un-clear state of reality I had figured something chemically heroic out. How long could I run with these drugs?...  a long time, too fucking long, but I really had to learn this shit myself. I am still and then really was an unruly stubborn.... an ultra  stubborn,  I mean I was a bowling ball hard-headed little punk, and so in this character I truly had to live and learn everything myself.  I could of listened to others advice very simply. Those warnings about the destructive path I was venturing down were all coming alive one at at time, but if I hadn't experienced this 'Hell' personally I wouldn't have been so desperate years later to yearn for God and the ultimate reason He has me here. I now believe I have a real  purpose today in the grand scheme of all of these things, as crazy as they were then,  they're much crazier in a joyful manner today,  all because of Jesus' love.

THIS DOPE MONKEY COMES BACK HOME

My mom eventually tracked me down to where I was staying. After she talked to Karen(Rustin's mom), I then decided that I might as well go back. I can't remember the exact telephone conversation but I am sure that she was crying, and obviously she had hit all the right chords of confused regret. Also I was very homesick no matter how much of a badass I thought I was, I was an extremely lonely individual. I couldn't continue on with my mom so distressed about my well-being, and after all back in Texas I could get away with drinking and smoking pot all I wanted, even at my parents house. I just had to bull-shit them with a higher degree of finesse now, and until the next time I was caught not behaving only then would I have to manifest myself further into an even bigger lier. It would go on this way for years, and I believed that I was becoming slicker and slicker each time some consequential event occurred, all the while I merely had been rapidly transforming into a humungous strung-out dope monkey. I was grounded for at least a month, promised I would be a good son, and I had my car back to myself by the time my junior year in high school rolled around. THis is where my life begins to get really jacked up, all due with me trying to be a responsible teen with a job, so my brilliant fogged out brain pursues and acquires a job working in the pharmacy of a local store, called Eckerd's (they are out of business now, and no not because of my stealing...lol), in K-town. It was right next door adjoining the old Metro Food Outlet, which is also gone, their vacant buildings were eventually replaced by a church.

THIS SLINKY'S REGRET

Slinky down thru a new town she blew thru,
high speed velocity to simply forget,
her uprise is masked to allow fountains to sound,
her dawn's dew rolled dice,
her song soothed to comfortably caress,
as gaping gardens twisted her hips,
those swooshing south strayed,
starved she splashed my stash,
crying she danced to a beat I'd never forget,
so I staved off shots sour,
she was my shady sunrise,
and was born this slinky's regret.

THIS MONKEYS JUST GETTIN' WARMED UP

We arrived back at the Jenkowskis house around three o'clock that afternoon, man was my body sun-drenched, exhausted and dehydrated. I simply ate a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich, washed down with three tall glasses of water. Then languidly I strolled to the guest bedroom and jumped up in onto a top bunk-bed, with a space-efficient desk below replacing the bottum bunk. I love those soft afternoon siestas, they seem to always contain the most vividly pleasant dreams, those naps that provide peaceful sleep but unfortunately they're always a crap-shot as to the state in which I might awake. I will either feel contently rested for the evening or swamped with a heavy head which usual compels me too continue sleeping deep into the evening or past midnight even. This time I awoke gratefully healed from the sun's beating around seven optimistic and ready to go out to a house party Lisa had told me about on the way back from Avila Beach.
Lisa was fifteen, only a year younger than me, and so again I maintained a huge secret crush on her. I am sure she knew that I liked her a bit so when I say secret I mean that the majority of this enormous infatuation was what I held a captive secret, or I believed. Lisa being so attractive was already immune to teenage boys falling for her easy, and so this helped maintain some semblance of a guise as being a somewhat cool and mysterious individual, again this was mostly my own hilariously created perception. Karen was very laid back and understood that we would probably be drinking so she held a laid back sensible stance that we should not drink and drive, also neither one of us had a car. We were dropped at this dude named Josh's house that Lisa knew from school. Josh was extremely similar to me as were the majority of the people that showed, in that we all were a lot of unsupervised drunkenly-stoned, horny, and rambunctious bunch of kids trying to get as wild and smashed as our physical body's would allow for the short duration of that night's black expanse. Bone THugs n' Harmony, Snoop Dogg, Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shukar brazenly bumped the speakers and enveloped with a random mixture of grunge and punk rock from that era of the late 90's. Nirvana swelled and swooned with the raspy voice Cobain catapulted into a flash of short exploding stardom. Pearl Jam, Janes' Addiction, Soundgarden, BUsh, Smashing Pumpkins, etc... all rocked those speaker and created basically another cliche of an American's youth party atmosphere that most of us have experienced, some participated in more extremes of this common scene than others. I had a few beers in me when I was wondering and exploring the premises to find a few hunkered down somewhere in secret hiding to get high, usually people wouldn't want to share their personal stash with the whole flock of maniacs in attendance. I was finally getting some chemical relief, but just barely, this dope monkey was just gettin' warmed up....

A SWIM SPENT

She swam the rising tide jacked up on crack,
she ran the streets bold,
but rest assured her brain bore waves frothed to swelter,
depths passive and less cold,
huge monsoons poured but remain cramped and collared,
sent to bend-up,
pent-up engaged,
ready to race,
steady spent on that dicy climax,
to stroll out grinning,
implode wearing her shine simple,
death will grip her cries,
and I believe a symphony soon will surround her,
soothing surrender sacks her delivered.

PACIFIC BEACH MONKEY

The next day was exhilarating, and it began very early, well getting up at nine in the morning is always an early rise for this dope monkey. Foggy I awoke with that dreamy Pacific binded to a half asleep-state of mind, my thoughts so giddy because this day-trip had been planned within an hour of crashing the previous night. Karen had some fresh fruit cut up and Rustin, Lisa ,and I ate lightly and hurriedly. Then we were off! The drive west filled an hour that thrust my excitement into acceleration, sense of a new adventure thrived as I gazed at the rapidly transforming landscape which raced alongside the telephone and power lines. The fervor continually compounded to the inner-depths of a sober head with words chattering at the shit-ton of un-restrained lunatics laughing and dancing just on the inner- surface of my skull. I welcomed them usually with sick hospitality, although the majority of the time they took advantage, abusing my welcoming attitude by treading painfully, prodding and burdening my soul.
When we arrived at Avila Beach I was freakin pumped. I was warned that the Pacific was very chilly even during the summer so I ran in for rapid dolphin-esque submerge, plunging in a methdoical swimmers dive right before the tide flowed up over my knees, and all my instincts from 10 years on the swim team growing up sank in. Anybody who knows anything knows this is the quickest method to get your body adjusted to cold waters. Lisa was hanging out with some of her friends, they were all pretty dang sexy, and I was too shy to talk therefore I instinctively resorted to showing off in order to obtain some much needed attention from all those bikini clad females present. I left Rustin and the girls behind, sprinting off towards the pier. Pedestrains, bicyclers, and fisherman all jumbled up and down the wooden salt swollen planks creating quite the atmosphere. As you have figured already I had never been to an ocean or beach yet in my life, maybe to the Gulf of Mexico as a young child but that doesnt fit into my adult memory as a credible life experience. I made my way down towards the end of the pier, everyones's focus was on me, or so I thought. I was the center of my own personal universal confusion. I was the cliche of teen angst, the stereotype of some young rebel that never heeded any warnings from adults who had been there before me. I figured they were all born ridiculously grown up and lost in the responsibilities of life. This was my warped sense of reality, but as soon as I climbed up on top of the railing I had drawn others in, several people's eye were now upon me, they gazed with intense curiosity. As I jumped off the pier, adrenaline engulfed and coursed thru my veins and headed towards my nerves. I had learned as a young boy from literally living and growing up in my parent's gymnastic's center, easy reckless ways to produce those chemicals that 'adrenaline junkies' often sought. The main reason people were basically staring, wondering what the hell was wrong with me, (looking at me like I was a maniac monkey) was because I had just broken a law that was common sense to the majority of the native beach bums. After swimming the distance of the pier back to shore I was quickly accosted by the local Beach Patrol Squad. The recently acquired marijauna leaf that I had tattooed on my back did not help my cause in not recieving a fat ticket for my offense. I had no idea jumping off the pier was now allowed. Luckily my ignorance produced a very plausible and believable defense which aided in my innocent 'dumb Texan' defense. They let me off with a warning. In the next ensuing years though my warnings were beginning to expire. I would find myself in and out of jails half dozen times a year, ever year the majority of my young adult life.

THIS MONKEY'S MIND A RIOT AND IN DESPERATION (back to the chronicles of a Dope Monkey)

Rustin and I galloped out into that orange-smattered, blue-tinted, and purple-phased dusk's promising horizon energized. Our vehicle was an old blue 88' Honda Civic. We were 16 damnit and we were freakin' invincible, well at least I thought I was, and so I chased this naive dream with very little doubt that I could ever be stopped. Rustin usually just laughed at my absurd behavior. I always wanting to smoke pot and consume as much liquor as I could possibly find as a minor. I was at the genesis of acquiring my status of a dope fiend, which eventually would transform me into a full blown dope monkey. Rustin was straight edge and I actually respected his character, but I couldn't really figure him out. He seemed so at ease and didn't seem to have any of those urges to escape as I did, so I out of respect I didn't act out as much around him. Looking back on this it was most likely better that his personality even-keeled mine out a bit when we were together. The first stop we made at one of his buddy's house, his 'Ska' band was meeting up to get in a few hours of practice. Since they were all straight edge naturally I wasn't offered any drugs or alcohol and was a bit uneasy and agitated, so I just smoked cigarettes and listened to his band practice until 9 or 10 that night. I hated that I felt so unnerved no matter where I was or who I was around if when sober. I could of been in the Bahamas sober and still would mainly focus on how I could get high or drunk. I really couldn't help it I figured, but thinking back on all those times it cooly helped me realize how sick my little brain was. I didn't merely have a one track mind, I was the owner of a compulsively steaming single destined-set thought processor that continued to chug further into desperation and unobtainable happiness.