the first time will always be ridiculous.
A man in a wizard costume with an arrow pointing to his ass that you call one of your closes friends will be doing ketamine in a back alley. He will get really upset when you wonβt take a bump with him and will insist that you should: and will give a soliloquy about how he feels like a βlame cuntβ doing this by himself. That surely, you knew the meaning of his invite (that it wasnβt simply geographical, but recreational) and that youβre therefore leaving him strung out. That no one joins someone in an alley upon request, without also joining them in a good sniff and a bump. That there has been some sacred agreement that youβve squandered. And that it is your job to fix it, then.
Your friend tells you that when you go out that you and everyone else, everyone but her, pushes it to the extent where they see stars. That you become an automaton: silent, swaying grinning, or: boring, immobile and concerning. That your recreation is a private one, meditational, medicinal. Antithetical to the climate of a party. You remember sitting there with fluttering eyes and heavy limbs, moving around like clothes in a dryer and doing all that you can to anchor yourself upright and remain conscious. To smile at the good bits of conversation that you can cling to. When you laugh your friend picks it out, βI made [name] respondβ. That makes you laugh more, hard and lucid, for a pretty brief moment. Before tumbling backwards into a warm empty swaying nothing. Tumbling all the way down into the back alley. Where you can make good on a request.
Where you can make good to a brother, "wizard", friend in need.
