Shapeshifting Hysteria

Can you taste the grainy thoughts of shapeshifting hysteria,

high on the bicycle spokes of yesterday’s light,

the kids already knew the ice cream’s time was left to melt,

this spectacular allure of sugar and naps cycle through a century,

traditions of childhood summers reconvened in the halls of retirement homes,

halls made wider than normal for electric scooter derbies held daily,

men collide and chase old skirts like it was the summer of 1945,

they dreamed of us in between cigar fumed poker sessions,

plastic elements fragmented into jittery calculations,

and they were never too young to learn,

they taught us how to operate inside a freebased dream,

and realized that we were born to wind around the bends,

corners bent to eclipse tomorrow's uncharted trends,

what happens when they witness ramifications implode,

can you help them and observe your disgust honorably,

can you pretend not to show disdain for their secrets,

can you learn to forget,

forget to show regret,

to forge the needle that would stitch up the times,

those times where unresolved histories seemed to own the night,

will you allow these subtle familiarities to lull you into warm justification,

alone to be seduced by your own naive compositions,

salt crystals guard the rims of cocktail glasses shelved high,

the usual order of things would be on the brink of catastrophe,

but the unusually high expectations are shrink wrapped tight,

even if the guardians are always close to ignition,

rainy Sundays would still welcome Monday shyly,

their epoch of denial was a monsoon,

bacon grease would need to retire to rejuvenate the realm of time traveling junkies,

and they traveled back to tell the kids about flavor-shaved weapons of ice,

and to teach the others about royalty and titles,

and how we should always call them snow cones,

never shaved ice once the syrups been poured over,

snow cones don’t pretend to be anything they’re not.

Flip-flop Newsletters

Flip-flop newsletters drop swift kicks,

the boys all craved this majestic weather,

the summer peaked and the heat swam the rapids upstream,

through the foamy torrents all agreed to remain in denial,

her curves were developed on a sandbar,

her jaded pursuit was more than a culinary art,

the screen door closed as the sunlight walked out on the porch,

they dragged their feet languidly along the cedar planks,

the front porch swing was there waiting for them,

he collapsed onto that swing,

but she just kept her pace towards the fence-line,

and then jutted after the sky.

She Said

She said,

"Is Bobby coming back to the party?'

On the other side of the cold sleepy saturated dawn.

She thought,

"Didn't he know I was waiting down the hall"

She saw what rendered the fence line shot.

She wondered,

"Surely he knows he's the only one."

This heart wasn't meant to collapse under the wrinkled sands of the sky.

She said,

"I bet you he's right outside smiling by the fire."

Before this morning's shudders die to the sun's towering rays that belt a fiery glaze.

She knew,

"When I wake up he will be next to me."

Their baby teethed on diamonds cut to show,
they jetted northwest,
until reaching nylon quilted exhaustion, 
she always thought she'd coined all his phrases,
she whispered gently to strike,
they never dropped in light,
through some near-sighted hype,
this time he was felted again,
and again in a neon frosted gambling den,
a deluge of bitcoin smiles,
aligned with smirks dotted by sweat beaded quirks,
they learned to capture thick moisture from the air,
like swamp cooler hipsters without a care,
their triple sec maroon dive,
showed platinum sleek cartoons on a single television set,
the crowd cheered instinctively,
this baby was their sole measure of wealth,
and all their losses were counted as soft velvet points,
they gained their next opportunity to smile in the rain,
those candid shots burned her eyes,
she could feel the crowd glow,
another phrase she embellished,
too drunk they would never know the difference,
the diamonds were always cut to show.

His far out arguments collapsed w time....

His far out arguments collapsed with time,

flying saucers reflected their distance from the sun,

galvanized steel shined cold like jellied broth,

there was never time for them to take a chance.

His father never taught him much of anything,

his dad never even showed him how to tie his shoes,

and so he never bothered asking anyone anyways,

that morning he tripped on a cereal box,

and licked the plastic spoon as he fell.

They never settled on how much heat crept in when no shades were drawn,

they instead moved on to less trivial topics like various lightbulb strengths,

and how gentle dynamite can be when no one is looking,

both sauntered the afternoon away behind clotheslines,

dampened fantasies never free from even the slightest breeze,

All he wanted was more ice cream,

but their disagreements always spoiled anything sweet,

and he always liked to masquerade around in his purple tinted shades,

the shades seemed to authenticate any corrupted smiles,

and all he ever really wanted was the breeze to come and brush across her dimples just right.

5 SHOWTIMES

Saturday morning cartoons muzzle the monsoon that reigns outside,

a paramount of theatrics huddled under one eave,

characters came in droves to seek warmth,

the episodic adventures of 'Tiny Tornados' was sold out,

the majority of tickets were sold in bulk to a group of jive turkeys,

Larry the Loon was on the trombone,

Barry the Buffoon was conducting the orchestra, 

showtimes were set to advance all day,

and would refresh every odd hour from 3pm on,

the torrents now downshifted to a steady drizzle,

rain checks began to overshadow the possibilities of performance,

but the show ran it's course,

and oblong balloons caused all the kid's laughter,

twenty-nine glasses clanged in celebration,

and the grass thickened as the plot twisted slicker.......

Dallas Dope Monkey: BIRD WATCHER

A bird dropped down and then floated up like a fish,

his feathers scaled the current back upwards gently,

the watcher was passively combative as he grinned,

this grin that shifted soundly as he chewed on a gummy worm softly,

his binoculars he held were fixed to his gloves,

stitched to the twine of a satin fragrance,

aromatic cliches invaded passages in vain,

blood pulsed though the maze,

courses plagued by patrons content with 18 holes,

the watcher's eyes were such a translucent blue,

that any bird with a brain could see right through this tune,

so he nestled back into his branch cradled home,

and whistled as if no one could hear.

D.D.Monkey's poetry: Horizon's Neatly Textured Lies

I wandered down slick sidewalks,
blades of grass invaded the cracks,
my head tilted back with deep regret,
it seemed like forever,
a crick set deep gripped my neck,
my mind registered only to authenticate our sky's obliteration,
pulsating bursts smothered what was to be heard,
a quick series of grape flavored sonic booms,
I gazed faded but then my eyes awoke,
darting they shifted in flashes as they set in their sockets rinsed,
I was seeing airplanes being swatted out and down from their jet streams,
some crashed across the shadows of giants,
others careened past the horizon's neatly textured lies,
the grass grew fast to harness this orchestration,
concrete riddles caught the pillots safely in their soft marshmallow bellies,
but the giants shadows remained constant,
and the horizon's neatly textured lies always brought a new tide.

D.dope monkey/F.W.dope junky (THAT FIRST WARM SHOT SOOTHED MY CHORDS)

    I could see Robbie through the windows of Denny's as he walked back through. I could see him talking to himself and shaking his head as he made his way from the back of the house. With each stride he took his pace grew considerably quicker.  I saw his figure roam past the dining hall windows, flinging open the door w excessive force, and then scramble back into the truck huffing and puffing like a drama queen. He hopped back into the drivers seat and it was more than apparent that he was bothered, but I just ignored the obvious and decided it was best to not speak for a bit.  The light precipitation had stopped and now a thick mugginess was cradled in the atmosphere.  This new stream of silence compounded the awkwardness in the truck. I just focused on the humming of the wet wheels interacting with the paved highway.  Robbie would be chemically soothed calmly soon.

     About an hour later we were back at my house, and my family wasn't there. For everyone to be out of the house, and even better to know that they were far from me was sweet.  If I were lucky enough to actually know a basic window of time that they might return was even sweeter.  I remember coming home on many occasions, seeing that no one was there and then calling my mom with some dumb question that usually entailed me being curious about what we were having for dinner later on that evening.  In reality I was only trying to find out where she was (how far away she was) and when she might possibly be returning.  Usually they were five minutes down the street at work and my mom would pop in unannounced. She had me caught up many times, usually she just discovered me smoking pot, but occasionally she found me insanely drunk at home when I shouldn't be, in the middle of the day.  I remember one afternoon having about eight of my friends over and we were hitting that ganja in the backyard, my mom pulls up in the driveway, one of us hid the pipe rather stealth-like, slipping it up the sleeve of their jacket, but regardless she knew that we were engaging in illicit marijuana smoking, in frustration she chastised us, "I know exactly what y'all are doing back here, I wonder why y'all are all standing out there in a circle like that?!"
          We arrived back from the dope house and as the car lurched close enough to visibly make out that there were no cars in the driveway I felt so relieved.  When we stepped inside the front door I was 100% re-assured that no one, not even any of my little brothers were present. I then felt even freer. I really longed to fully enjoy this new drug experience with no interruptions. Between the two of us we had a little over a hundred dollars worth of 'boy'(heroin) and 'girl' (cocaine). The purchase of the substances were made from a dope house in a predominantly black part of Ft. Worth, and they cut up coke and heroin at their own discretion. They packed them into little capsules, clear capsules similar to what certain types of vitamins are packed into.  The main source usually came from Mexicans at the root of all the drug sales in Texas.  The more hands that most drugs pass through then the more times that they are cut, which simply means the drugs become weaker.  Later on I would discover that though there were many dope houses dealing in 'caps' which did have potentially stronger doses,  the really good shit came straight from the source, bought from an individual usually of mexicano descent.
         Robbie had to take care of business before he would bother with me at all. I needed to be shown the way of the needle game. Robbie was very intentional in every movement during this swift procedure. The mind of a dope fiend utilizes the majority of his focus in scoring heroin and then hyper-focuses what focus and energies left on getting his 'rig' (hypo-dermic needle) made up proper. Wherever all your necessary equipment is stashed is the first place your feet shuffle towards upon arriving back home from scoring(many times this is all done in a car but it is dangerous; unless you are really dope sick this is not smart; a junky though may not come to this conclusion until he is arrested once or twice shooting up in a car).  A glass of water (or a bit of gin if you want to get crazy), needle, spoon, lighter, some cotton, plus the heroin, and your set. This is the traditional set-up, and when one or two is absent from the equation for whatever reason is when you see the creativity of a junky in it's true form. The black-tar is put on the spoon (or on the bottum half of a coke can ripped away which functions better than most spoons), a personally determined amount of water is drawn up into the syringe, then squirted back out onto the spoon, heat, mix, and stir with the needles un-attached plunger. The small piece of cotton(usually obtained from a new un-smoked cig' butt) is plopped down into the black solution of opiates, the tip of the needle then uses the cotton to filter the dope into the needle.  It was almost in-describable that first time I shot heroin.... bam-bi-badawal-bing-BANG! INJECTION and LIFTOFF! THOSE SWEET WARMTH WAVES  SWALLOW AND SATURATE  EVERY BIT OF NEGATIVITY THAT RESIDES IN YOU and IN EVERY EXTENSION CRAFTED FROM THE MIND'S VAST IMAGININGS! IF ONLY HEROIN WAS SOLELY PLEASURABLE and NO HELLISH PAIN, DEPRAVITY, DEPRESSION, or DEATH WAS ASSOCIATED.....

VELVET DIMENSIONS

His randomness was sincere,

connotations of sadness roamed in his mumbled whisper,

until he catapulted through this new tide and was redeemed clearer,

since her youth she had resided in the house of soft felt and champagne dinners,

and after they met upstate it's been blissful ever since,

birds perched in jealous of their love's audacity,

starbursts in constant delightful oblivion,

while this chorus was controlled in simple sweet timing,

the harmony could never be restrained musically,

captive was their angelic audience,

swiftly she said to him everything with confident reassurance,

and as always they dreamed tangibly together,

they kept there guests magically entertained in velvet dimensions.

A TWIN-TOWN PARADE

CATAPULTED THROUGH SEASONS LOOSE CHANGE,
A TWIN-TOWN PARADE, 
PULLED ON NEON REINS, 
HYPNOTICS THAT WE CAN'T EXPLAIN, 
BAD ACID & FREON GLAZE....


FIRESIDE CHATS WITH NO GAPING DISCONTENT,
LOVING YOUR PARENT'S WITHOUT DISDAIN,
MASKING CREDIT WITH HUMBLED RESTRAINT,
WALKING DOWN INTO A SOGGY JOG THROUGH TO A SPRINTING TIRADE,
LIMESTONE CREEK BEDS & RED-BRICKED CHIMNEYS.....

Choo Choos and Soft Satin Swirls

Those choo' choos' that fumed after a shot of cocaine,

could only be replaced with the zeal of God,

soft satin swirls of heroin sweetly zapped my anxiety,

that despair I now replenish through a loving Jesus,

who allows me to embrace a full spectrum naturally sound,

I once absorbed my reality and filtered it like a gypsy clown,

now this confident peace owns me,

I desire to converse with God constantly, 

in simplicity he continuously reigns beautifully surreal. 

FLAVOR CRAZED UNBOUND

Grapes fall in time,
they chime squashed to a discounted design,
some reds collapse into berries,
others carelessly disappear into oblivion,
but a single sour shot rises into a sweeter mixed sway,
strongly it spells a flavor crazed unbound,
collecting thick breaks that shore up unrestrained,
we had never before heard of such sweet downpour,
we experienced this foreign candy launch,
that confused our taste buds into a feverish pull,
gobble-gobble this deliciously glazed refrain.

HER VACANT ABSENCE

She trailed off mid-sentence,

delirium plotted a new course,
her vacant eyes promised this growing absence,
and the present kept refreshing the familiar falsely,

She shivered while doing the left handed dial,
the connection gripped in silent fear,
I heard she knew him over ten years ago,
he displayed relatively awkward imaginings,

He re-iterated her irrationally patterned collections,
and the loop swapped the sickness out,
the key that shook her gently,
created a hope that would swoop down soundly.

DFW MONKEY: Scoring Gravity

      Cole and I didn't speak for at least a year or so after I had gotten him mixed up in my craziness. He was understandably upset with me, and I was irrationally resentful towards him for years to come.  Who knows whatever became of Rick, and I am curious to know but these details will most likely forever remain a mystery to me.  I was restless and having experienced a deeper sense of unrest and a new source of anxiety I resorted to using a needle to administer heroin. Robbie was in my class at Keller, I am sure I bought weed from him on one occasion a year or so prior, but I didn't know him very well until the day that he personally showed me how to shoot dope.  Somehow I had been given the word that he had been involved with 'dope' (For the most part if I ever refer to dope it will mean heroin. It is a very broad term to mean any drug but for those with a preference it has a special meaning to those who are all specifically involved with the same drug. Meth heads that know other Meth heads will always know that when one in their crowd says 'dope', they mean Meth, and the same goes for Heroin. Using the word 'dope' referencing Heroin has a deeper roots than any other drug in history) for awhile now, and if I needed to score some 'dope', than Robbie was my guy.
       Robbie picked me up from my house one afternoon. He sloppily maneuvered his little Mazda pick-up truck (yes, true to the stereotype, many people do own trucks in Texas) into my parent's driveway. He nearly hit the tree that sat splitting the middle of the first segment in two. Instead of cutting it down they paved concrete around it, it did seem to serve a purpose as a functional divider, giving two separate paths that quickly rejoined and lead up to the rest of the drive that led up to the garage. I was eagerly awaiting his arrival, perched by the front window I hurried out as soon as he rolled up. The spirit of addiction swam through the air and attached itself to my senses. It honed in on me, abetting this newly acquired nostalgia that I would from then on out associate with that pre-dope rush, simply experienced in the journey of scoring dope.
       "Whats up Robbie... dude you want to smoke on the way out there?" I said as I pulled out a joint.
       "Sure," he replied and then he just drove and we hit the joint for several minutes before I could no longer stand the grim silence.
        "So how far into Ft Worth are we headed?"
        "About thirty minutes at most, depending on traffic."
        "Cool."
        "We are just going to hit up my guy off Berry(a street in Ft. Worth wrought full of dope houses) where hes at right now."
        "So hes at like a dope house?"
        "Something like that, yea he is working the window at one of the spots that I know of."
        "OK," I answered and felt like I was verging into a whole new realm of the drug culture right then.
        "Im going to make a stop real quick up at my work, but its on the way."
        "Yea man its whatever."
We stopped at a twenty-four-seven diner, Denny's, where he worked. I think he was hitting someone up for money because he had quite a habit at this point in time, and wanted to make the venture that we were trekking worthwhile. I was already donating ten bucks worth of dope for obtaining his services.  However, who knows really what the heck we had stopped at his work for. After many years of being around the most random strange drug fueled addicts I realized that I would have to come to terms and accept that sometimes we would make some most ridiculous and senseless stops. It began to drizzle as I sat stoned staring into the abyss of the grey sky that surrounded. I lingered somewhat patient due to the weed I had just smoked, lounging outside of Denny's in his truck, waiting and hoping for him to promptly return from completing whatever task he was trying to accomplish inside.  I was caught in deep anticipation of what this new drug indulgence would be like.  Would I be rocketed into a drug induced orgasm? Little could my young mind comprehend how detrimental of an impact these 'adventerous' choices would have on my life.

DFW MONKEY: AN ANXIOUS INTERMISSION

 Fear throttled me into a new realm of anxiousness after I had committed a string of B.M.V's (Burglary of a Motor Vehicle) in one drunken night of mayhem.  'They' had me logged into the State of Texas' cancerous system now. I was arrested, bailed out, and then arrested again months later before finally being sentenced. As with most fears this one stemmed from guilty anger. At the time I selfishly felt  anxiety purely from not knowing what my punishment would entail. During a span of about two weeks, beginning from the time that the detectives discovered the stolen goods in my room, scared me into confessing, and ending at the time I was initially arrested was the source of the majority of this anxiety. I was told that they had enough evidence for their case against me, and that this would result in a warrant being issued for my arrest. When would they come to get my punk ass? They said they couldn't tell me exactly when this would happen, but simply assured me that it would happen sometime in the near future. At the time this crime was a misdemeanor (now I believe it is a state jail felony) and so I figured that I just might be confined in the County jail longer than my nieve teenage brain could comprehend.   When that warrant was issued it prompted the cops to come and find me.  I didn't try to elude them. They easily enough got me on their first attempt, coming out to my parent's house in one successful swoop.  There are many different ways to define the word 'surrender'. That was a definite example of a  forced 'physical surrender', but it would be over a decade later when I decided willingly to submit myself to a much sweeter 'spiritual surrender.' In city jail I experienced a brief stay of several days and nights where I wallowed in this guilt-ridden anxious contemplation. That first concrete desolation was not nearly enough to cause me to wise up even the slightest.  The living hell that my destruction would gravitate me through the following years was fucking sick.  My parent's bailed me out of the city jail, and it wasn't until December that I was arrested again.  During these seven months I started fooling around with shooting that dark ass black tar heroin. I am sure that I would've starting shooting dope regardless, but these problems that I was experiencing with the law helped to swiftly propel me into a new angst, which called for a stronger dose everyday.

DFW MONKEY: Breaking the Law like a Redneck Gypsy

That never ending deluge of time allotted by Keller High's principals was finally over. I was through going downtown everyday to the County's damn  Juvenile school. Upon returning I definitely wasn't forgotten by the principals, my reputation (which I undoubtedly deserved) kept me a target all through out High School. I was still devoting the majority of my waking hours to smoking lots of pot and tripping way too much acid. I rode to school and hung out with one of my buddies, Cole, everyday to wrap up the last month of school. We rolled up reeking of herb every morning. I had never been kicked out for just being stoned on weed, but within a week upon returning from the juvenile school my first period teacher tried her best.  My eyeballs are already huge, giving me away, sometimes unfairly because even now as a sober dude I can look stoned, but when I really am stoned my eyes look insanely red and glossy. My teacher sent me to the nurses office but without an escort, so I simply bypassed the nurse's office and left the school altogether for that day.  I was not about to be kicked out as soon as I had returned for smoking pot.  I ended my junior year there as I had began, barely attending.  Cole was a close friend but looking back on it I used him for rides, and he used me to smoke free weed.  It was a fair trade.  (To ever encounter even one single friendship where neither person has any ulterior motives or agendas is rare and one should never forget these special blessings.)  Cole and I were always smoking in his truck in the morning, and skipping classes here and there to rejuvenate our spirits with more weed, and then continued on smoking as soon as we ventured out of the school's parking lot. On a typical day we didn't stop till we parted ways in the early evenings, and then I would commence to take my drugs and drink alone until passing out.  I still remember eye-balling that damn motorcycle cop with aggressive paranoia while we passed him leaving the school grounds. I forget his name but he had messed with us before. "Fucking cops man," I uttered everyday as we passed by him. He was there like clock-work as the afternoon school traffic streamed out, there to radar and ticket anyone speeding in the school zone.
Cole drove a little blue 89' Chevy pick-up truck. The majority of his family was born and raised in Keller, and they still had several hundred acres that was steadily growing more and more in value. They held off until years later to give in to the developers that would eventually have most of Keller's residential areas divided up into sub-divisions. When I was a younger teen, before ever having meet Cole I would wander exploring all over his family's property.  Fishing in their stock pond, and ever so often would get kicked off the property by either his grandpa or one of his uncles.  This vast landscape was the perfect setting to shoot off fireworks or smoke cigarettes without having to worry much over getting into too much trouble.
     I love that pocket between spring and summer, and I was sedated snug right, floating somewhere in the midst of the latter days of the refreshing month of May. We skipped the entire last day of school, just like the first day, usually two of the most pointless day to attend. Cole and I did our usual bullshitting around town, listening to music and getting high. As the gentle colors contoured the rays of the setting sun, dusk gently rescued us from the day's heat with a breeze.  When the sun began to set I seemed to always catch a second wind.  After coming down from a sun baked lethargy brought on by mid-afternoon, I knew I could usually look forward to gaining access to this new reserve of energy late in the day, and tonights purpose we were set out to get smashed drunk like young idiots living in the prime of our stupidity. We went to go pick up Rick Brinks, who I had occasionally hung out with but not much.  He lived with his loony meth-head parents in a log cabin off of Ottinger road. Every time I conjure up the image of their property, which included some sheds, and various other ridiculous structures; my main associations to memories of his family is them living on a compound in some weird cult-like fashion. Ricks parents did drugs but were twisted because of how fucking strict that they were on Rick for smoking weed.  I never understood this obviously absurd hypocrisy of the drug taking parents, but I guess just because they had a drug problem they simply didn't want their son to share a similar one.  I believe that I also had ill memories of his house and family simply because I had an intense and mostly unpleasant trip on acid one really long day at his house. Unfair bias of places where I have had bad trips often brand its lingering foams in my brain for years.
        Rick jumped in the bed of his truck and off we went to get one of Cole's uncles to purchase some beer for us. We had a cooler full of steaks and beer, and some sleeping bags to camp out on the outskirts of Cole's family land.  We headed up a dirt road that stemmed off of Florence Rd. which led to an abandon trailer home that was also owned by Cole's family. Behind the trailer home is where we gathered some sticks and logs, and started a fire. We tossed a metal grill on some high standing rocks that we had placed around the fire in order to cook the steaks. We waited impatiently to inhale some juicy red meat as we toked up proper and drank Budweiser like stereotypes of heathen redneck gypsies from Texas.
         I submerged my self into alcohol as quickly as I could and chain-smoked cigarettes and blunts with my boys. Around midnight we felt adventurous and hopped in Cole's truck, riding around neighborhoods to see what kind of hell we could raise.  I began stealing items from unlocked cars. Items such as a couple of lame cameras, some binoculars, CDs, and cassette tapes. I remember specifically one of the cassettes was the Don Henley album that contained the cheesy song "Dirty Laundry." Every time I hear that damn song play it reminds me of these ridiculous car burglaries that I committed in a young drunken stupor thinking this is a great way to celebrate the beginning of summer. What it did was begin a decade long cycle of real tangling with law enforcement and various city and county jails. I was so lost and every irrational drug-induced thing I decided to act on contributed to my anxiety and fears in life, which kept the damn cycle thriving on itself. I now had more reasons to use drugs than the basic youthful curiosity. I had began to really collect more and more of emotional shame, guilt, and remorse that I now medicated over. Drugs helped me deal with anything and everything from then on out. Drugs also created these insane problems and trouble I continuously found myself in.
          Poor Cole's truck was seen by someone that night and they linked him to the thefts. Cole really hadn't stolen anything and none of it was his idea in the first place. The only thing he was guilty of was being present and drive Rick and me around as we raised hell. None of us planned to break into cars. I think we were just roaming around and saw some items in one car, took them, and then that planted the idea to start looking more for unlocked car doors. After that it was like we couldn't get enough useless junk from people's cars.  Cole was questioned by the cops and he 'ratted' us out. I blamed him then but now I certainly don't blame him the least bit. We caused some shit to reign down upon him that he wasn't even responsible for.  This was the first time I had to deal with the Keller P.D.'s detectives, and they scared the shit out of me.  I denied the fuck out of everything but they ended up talking with my parents, who allowed them to search my room where they ended up discovering some of the reported stolen property. I was booked as an adult for the first time. My parents let me sit in the city jail for a few days and then they bailed me out finally cause I called them collect all day and night everyday from my cell until I wore them down and broke there spirits. Seven months later I would do the longest time I had done so far in my young life, it was tied to this arrest, and it involved me spending another New Years Eve(the millenium) and New Years Day incarcerated, except unlike last year I was in the adult County lock-up.  I also spent Christmas in there. That was fucking awesome, boy let me tell ya'! One thing I remember was my parents coming to visit me before the millenium and told me that they were going out to East Texas at the families old farmland just in case chaos from Y2K went down. They told me if all the computers shut down it might open the jail doors and cause a riot. I was supposed to find a way out there and meet up with them if this occurred. Y2K turned out to be a hoax, and I finished my 30 day sentence and was released back into society.

GOD WILL ALWAYS REPLENISH MY SPIRIT

This life evades nothing that I can't accept,
I listen to songs that pour out love,
as lilies dream in soft sounds,
waves of leaves scatter,
and remind me of season's less sane.

A crowd disperses energy,
painting delicate desperation,
I swim through these blues,
and hit an emotional climax smiling,
I know God will always replenish my spirit.

DFW MONKEY: The Real Juice of a Dope Monkey Runs Strong

 I got the impression that the county will not babysit you unless you are a real danger to society because I was only there for a few days after being arrested at the juvenile school. When you become an adult is when they will get ya', and when this occurs, happy birthday cause they are through jacking around. The state will send your ass to prison or state jail in a heartbeat, especially if you have a damn public defender assigned to your case. This was the last case I would catch as a minor, luckily it was two months before I turned seventeen, which is the age you start going to adult jail for being a jackass and breaking laws in good ole' Texas. I finally finished my 'sentence' at that damn juvenile school and attended Keller High School once again for the remaining few months before the summer of '99 began.
       In the stories that chronicle the summer of 98' I failed to mention something that is of major importance  to the theme of my old ways, and how the seeds were planted for my extended entanglement with opiates.  I can't remember if my first indulgence of heroin occurred before or after my excursion to the West Coast that summer, but at this point I am sure there isn't much significance in knowing exactly when it was. I know I had impulsively abused LSD, valium, ketamine, cocaine, weed, and alcohol so far in my young journey with chemicals. My compulsion to alter my state of consciousness, bound together with my dangerously naive curiosity spurred this need to experiment with almost any and every chemical I would come across.  I placed heroin high on my list of priorities, not just as a substance to try as soon as I could allocate a source, but ridiculous as it sounds I was obsessed with this above all other priorities in general. As taboo as heroin is I ignored all the warnings of its dangers and listened with open ears to all those voices of my peers and the section of the media and hollywood that advertised heroin as an existential wonder that produced some of the most sensational euphoric effects above all other drugs known to man.
        T.J. lived in one of Keller's half a dozen trailer parks, which can be found less than five minutes away from rich neighborhoods where people such as Dallas Cowboys players have been known to reside. I had known T.J. for a couple of years now and we were mainly acquaintances because of marijuana, not much else. I had many friends like this that would hit me up if his usual weed guy was out and vice versa, I would swing by his place if I hadn't much else place to turn.  We also went to school together, and he was quite a pot-head but a decent person nonetheless.  One day one of his buddies which I believe lived in the same trailer park mentioned heroin when I was hanging around getting stoned with these guys. "Finally!" I secretly thought celebrating inside all the while trying to refrain from showing too much eagerness in this drug I had been fantasizing over for too long. This guy had a hook up from some older lady right there in the trailer park which was less than five minutes from my parent's house at the time.  I don't remember the name of T.J.'s friend, nor can retrieve any semblance of a mental image of his face, but I do remember that he taught me about 'chiva', which is a common way to make 'tar' heroin into a snort-able substance. I began buying capsules that were pre-cut into chiva for ten bucks a pop, snorted one and the 'horse' races were on (horse is one of many slang words for heroin). I was wrapped in this warming-rush of calm and serene confidence. I smoked weed along with it and found the ultimate combo, my choice above doing any and all other drugs if it was there.  The problem as with anything I did was I wanted to do it all day everyday and as much as I could do in one given moment provided I had enough money.  This stint only lasted three days but it had me feeling dependent already. I tried getting some again after the third day and apparently the chic he was scoring from had ended up in jail.  I felt very uneasy and on edge already craving madly for it, and I had only been using heroin for three days. The high I got was incredibly unique, and on the other end of the spectrum how quickly it caused me to fiend for it was very shocking.  I guess I am lucky he wasn't into needles because the course of my life would have been negatively altered even sooner.  I didn't inject heroin until a good year later.

D.D.Monkey's poetry: CREAMED NOSTALGIA

There came a turning of some casually jointed events,
they figured how to placate the actors egos,
and time bent them to their knees,
those memories streamed via the internet smooth as the cable bill,
nostalgia creamed any relative regrets,
and those players in the scene weren't all naive to the rearranging,
a slanted breeze mixed with this morning's lax,
spurned a sweet chill as if we had never left that cradling fix of genesis's green-scape.