Morphine Ghost

I miss the kiss of the needle more than I miss sleep. I dream about that sharp little promise pressing through my skin, the cold certainty that everything screaming inside my skull is about to be wrapped in velvet. Then the haze begins to descend—not all at once, but like heavy fog swallowing a lonely road—until Mother's footsteps become distant, the whispers retreat into the walls, and even She seems to lose interest in me for a little while. They tell me the needle was killing me, but they never understood that it was also the only thing that ever convinced the monsters to blink first. Now I lie awake raw and exposed, aching for that familiar sting, praying for the gray silence that used to carry me somewhere they could not follow.