Call my wife and my son.
Tell them that I am sorry.
That I love them
All that I had on my mind
That and, of course, the impulse to throw my glass pipe full of crystal meth
I wasn’t going to make it. This was the end for me.
But if the voice that
I kept hearing in my head somehow convinced my body to
HANG ON, HELP WAS COMING!
Then I didn’t want them to find my pipe.
The expansion of thought.
Not taking me any further back
Back to the 4.8 grams still in my pocket or how I exactly knew that
Having just weighed and dropped off 7 grams.
In a white single car garage set up as the meeting place to keep my identity a secret.
As if those waiting in the house located ten feet away would not see or hear me pull up and enter.
Or watch me leave as their anticipation of receiving the drugs for themselves heightened.
Back, to having been on this road, already twice this morning
Or back to the very instant that I saw him.
The decision made to continue forward based on a false sense of probability calculated by a mind.
Which had not had a clear pattern of thought in over six months.
Back to what exactly happened. What was going on?
Sioux Falls, South Dakota. This is where I lived.
I was in the wind headed east out of town.
A blacktop highway, the number of which I cannot remember.
In the wind, mind, and body.
Spirit and motorcycle.
As one.
Brought together and held that way.
By the continuous stream of smoke that I inhaled.
From the end of the glass pipe safely secured in my pocket.
1st curve.
Sway right.
Throttle down.
Slight seat adjustment.
Railroad tracks ahead.
2nd curve.
Sway right.
Throttle up.
Stand up.
A second set of tracks.
All of this for no reason.
Just the expansion of motion to go with the elevated sense.
Conjured by my mind in the midst of my high, defining the word freedom.
Freedom.
The sun out and shining, too early to be too hot.
The only breeze is warm, created by the weight.
Me and my machine seemingly splitting the atmosphere.
Dicing and creating a new reality.
Ride to live.
Live to ride.
Approaching the straight away.
Anticipating the habitual thrust of the throttle.
The deep rumble of the engine.
The tough.
The American made.
I catch a glimpse.
A look again.
A verified.
Danger resonates somewhere in my senses, continue with caution.
Splitting and dicing
Caution.
No.
Caution.
I continue.
In the midst of my addiction, 10:30 in the morning riding my 1996 Harley Davidson Springer Softail I hit a deer.
I split that deer in half.
That deer split me in half.
I awoke in the hospital.
The only thing on my mind, the 4.8 grams that was in my pocket.
I had almost died.
My bike had been demolished, others may have been injured as well.
I almost died.
The only thought on my mind.
The drugs.
My singular purpose.
My obsession.
My Life.
I had lived to use.
Used to live.
This time.
This time I had used to almost die.
About our Contributor Dennis Cockerham
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