Addicted

1

"Your name is Ocean?"

"Yeah, why?"

"That's so... unique?"

"Yeah my mom wasn't creative, she probably wasn't even sober when I was born. She was most likely high off of everything possible. That explains me, right? Look at me."

"I am, but you have to own some kind of responsibility for how you are now, Ocean."

"I do, cause it's always me isn't it? I don't even know my own family. As far as I know is my dominican mom was an addict, and my white dad is somewhere with his rich ass, perfect family pretending like I never existed, isn't that great? And you say I need to take responsibility?"

"Ocean, I didn't mean it like that-"

"Then how did you mean it? You're just one of those judgemental doctors with a degree, that believes a piece of paper determines how much you know somebody. I'd rather be the way I am than tell you my life if you're gonna sit here and say I'm the reason for some of it."

"Listen, we can try this again."

"No." I got up and walked out of the office, and walked right passed my counselors car.

"Where are you going?! You still have an hour left!"

"Anywhere but here."

"Ocean let me help you! You're so young, you've been through so much I want better for you! More than you want for yourself!"

"You don't know what I want for myself." I said walking off, leaving her right there in the middle of the sidewalk with everyone else. I walked until I was tired, then I catched a subway back to Brooklyn. I was born here, been in Brooklyn all my life, I never left out of New York ever. It feels like it's all I know, like nothing else is out there, and technically for me it isn't.

I've been in and out of foster care homes more than I can count. When I was three, my mom died, and I never met my dad, all I knew about my dad was what my mom told me. Whenever she got tired of me she'd never hesitate to tell me how I was a mistake, how she only slept with my dad to get the drugs or money she needed. I wasn't used to love coming from any direction, most homes I was in and out of were full of abusive people, and my mom and her life style fucked me up before that even added on.

I jumped off the subway and back on the streets of Brooklyn I was. I'm only 17 and right now, homeless, no job, not in school. I forgot to mention I'm a drug addict, and most days I'm drunk as hell when I'm able to get alcohol. I've been on drugs and drinking since I was about 12 years old, and when I don't have the drugs I lash out at everyone in my way, sometimes I keep control but after a while I'll go through withdrawal, and need it. The longest I've gone without drugs in my system was a full day, and that was hard enough for me.

I just have me, myself, and I, and falling into my moms footsteps was exactly what I was doing. Sometimes I meet people just like me, older and younger, at the abandon house I crash at. It's sad to see so many people are like me, but this is all I'm used too, everything possible you can think of has happened to me except anything good, my life has never been a pretty painted picture.

"How was it?" Said one of the only friends I had sometimes, April. I knew her for years, but she'd disappear for a long time at a time, cause she was just like me. "Did they act like they knew your story like always?" She said as she was lining up cocaine along a magazine.

"You know how it goes." I said dropping my bag and sitting up against the wall with her. "I just left right out, I don't got time for that stupid shit."

"Wasting their time thinking they can fix people like us, I'm gonna be on drugs until it kills me." She said before she took the line of cocaine. I couldn't help but think about what she just said, but most of me knew she was right. I'm not shit, there's no fixing someone who was born broken, who you have no idea what exactly can be fixed.

"Right. You're right." I said grabbing the magazine and taking in a few lines of the cocaine, then throwing it across the room once every trace was gone. "We'll never be any better than we are will we?"

"I mean, if you believe in all that shit, then maybe. But me nah, if I was gonna be any better than I am now I would've been had the ideal foster family, or my own parents would've wanted me. I was made for myself, and I just happen to be destructive. I destroyed everything else, I don't care anymore." April said as she took out the bottles of liqour and the heroin needles, along with some perks. "You down for a hell of a night?"

"I'd never turn down a night of feeling no pain, lay it on me." I said as I opened the window up, moving the newspaper that was up against it so we could get some of the sunlight from the setting sun. Everyday was like this for me, some days were worse than this, but this is all I ever grew to know, this was my way of life.