my phil of soph

Rap Sheet Resume

I struggle to understand why you inject your veins with poison.

Poison that you damn well know

is rotting your mind, your body, your soul.

You live for it.

Lie for it.

Sell your body for it.

Punch your mother for it.

Pull a knife on a stranger to get money for it.

Let a man violate you over and over for it.

And you’re telling me

that you would die for it?

I remember the first time I realized you were using:

Brighton Beach Starbucks, Rihanna was playing

a cover of a song by Tame Impala.

I look over at you and chuckle, I think that you’re dancing,

but you’re having a seizure while you’re standing.

I call your name to bring you out

as your phone falls behind the espresso machine.

Sweat dribbling on your forehead, your face is bleached.

I make you sit down, we take someone’s table

They see my face and then they see yours

And they leave it alone, visibly concerned

I go to the barista to get you a water

My hands were shaking and I could only imagine

the expression that I must have had on my face

because he asked ME if I was ok,

like I was the one who needed that question.

“Should I call an ambulance?”

I asked you the same.

You insisted on no that you were ok.

I was in shock, sick, frozen in place.

We walked back to your crib, you had three more cigs.

You say you need buspirone, you’re just withdrawing.

But I know it’s not that simple, it’s something more.

Possibly Xanax. I’ve seen it before.

The look in your eyes, the same as the other:

our male cousin; my dad, your moms’ brother.

How could this happen? Two out of three?

And was there room in the story for what was happening to me?

Was this before or after your boyfriend went to jail?

For something like possession, assault, or stealing?

You sent him money whenever you could.

You knew he was using you, but he hooked you good.

It wasn’t the love, the sex or attention;

It was drugs all along, and that hunger only strengthened.

I finally see you for the first time in months

After learning you’d gone off the deep end.

It had started with alcohol at twelve or eleven

Weed and then Xanax, 2014

And now it’s heroin. 2016.

The first thing I do is look in your eyes

and I find myself grieving a girl still alive.

I wanted to see if you were still inside

but I could no longer see you, and a part of me died.

The part that thought we’d all be ok:

three Brooklyn babies, for the rest of our days.

You’d be my kids auntie, and my bridesmaid.

After our family eventually left,

we’d still have each other till it was our turn to lay.

Until then I had thought that with you I’d grow old.

But I realized then that I could no longer hope.

You’re as thin as paper, and as white as snow.

All you talk about is your dealer,

it’s the only life you know.

You ask me for money, but I tell you no;

“I would if I could”, but I know that I won’t.

I can’t stand the thought of that one fatal dose

being at my hands, fuck no, I won’t.

You run out real quick, he finally pulled up!

Twenty five minutes later, you return with your grub.

I’m nosy as you go behind the bathroom door.

I suspect what’s going on, but I need more.

You tell me to wait, you don’t want me to know

but I hear it go down and I listen close.

Baggie, aluminum foil, lighter, inhale

You come out calm and absent, your soul missing, eyes stale.

We sit some more, but then I gotta go.

It takes you a minute to hear me though.

Then you say “bye Steph”.

I wouldn’t see you again for years

Everything I know about you, I have to hear.

Rotting inside, your body shuts down

No period, no will

No control over your bowels

ER, maybe detox?

Methadone?

Get Clean?

It never lasts long even though we dream.

You shot up a boy with some issues in his brain

and he went into a coma, never to wake up again.

Did you care or understand? Do you realize that could be you?

Hooked up to wires, can’t speak and cant move?

But one day something clicks, I don’t remember why

but something touched and moves you inside.

Rehab? You agree

You head upstate and you finally leave.

I took the bus to King’s Highway from Avenue Z.

A circle of families in the same boat

They tell your mom and I how you’re doing, the entire scope.

They remind us of the real power of dope.

Most don’t stay, most relapse, but some don’t

Maybe you’d be one, we really, truly hoped.

You end up there twice, both times in vain:

they kicked you out, or you left because you were in pain.

Up at 6 am, chores, games-

But that black tar heroin was calling your name.

You’re home, we have hope, you promise NA.

You go out for a bagel and dip for three days.

Relapse again, were we really that shocked?

The only way you’d get clean is getting killed or locked.

Now you’re tied up with a man from the projects, BK.

I hear his name is fat boy, but that’s not his real name.

You say that he loves you because he cares:

when you’re trying to cop, he doesn’t let you leave!

He holds you when you cry and rolls up your sleeves!

gets you “good” drugs himself, from his own guy!

But soon you’re selling for him on the side.

Selling drugs and now selling your body-

Remember when you said it was merely a hobby?

Now look at you, getting decked in the face

by a man you think loves you; he’s a fucking disgrace

You were caught with bags, selling around coney

Maybe one or two times, local jail, off easy.

Another rehab, with fat boy behind you

I had little hope if I had to be truthful.

And you got kicked out for sneaking in drugs;

it was fatboy, of course, ol’ reliable scud.

Then you were running with some big time crew.

I’m not sure if it was fat boy that introduced you,

but it’s all the same shit: street drug ops,

selling and catching bodies, evading the cops.

When you weren’t home you were at some motel:

a big operation dope den by the canal.

Inevitable drug bust makes the local news

Drugs and guns, 14 in the crew.

The leader was Wiz, you’d mentioned Valentin.

Major trafficking charges, locked up 5 of the team.

You didn’t even finish your high school degree;

you, a conspirator, fresh off being a teen.

21 years old off to Rikers to mold.

I’d never seen the inside of a prison,

searched and scanned like I was scheming.

You in a jumpsuit with glass in between.

Your voice on the phone, I was dazed like it was a dream.

I’d never been to court for an arraignment;

more lowkey than the movies and shows claimed.

Seeing criminals chained up and sentenced;

dealing, stealing, killing, possession.

It was hard to believe that that was your world-

I still hear the way you said my name when we were girls.

I’d never seen a man pull out a 100 stack

to pay for Chinese food, no skin off his back.

Fat boy fed us good that day, waiting for you.

We knew where it came from, and he knew we knew.

Your mom and I waited in the back with him your man.

Eventually she left, we talked, he planned.

You were set to come out, and he sat up quick.

Seeing you in those shackles again made me sick.

Hearing your name and the charges stacked.

I wondered how it’d be if they locked you up for real.

I wondered how it’d be if they let you go.

Where would you get sober?

Where would you heal?

Your first big charge, they’d let you out on one condition

That you stay in rehab but who were they kidding.

8-15 years if you failed to stay.

You know it was real but could you really be swayed?

A garbage bag of your stuff from Rikers,

a social worker with a rehab contact;

the paperwork from prison still hasn’t arrived

so she’s on the phone with one of the guys.

Meanwhile you and fat boy fight in the street

about a guy who visited you with whom he said you cheat.

You denied, you gaslit, he yelled and threatened;

all I could do was wait for it to end.

I didn’t know the situation, or what fat boy could do

so I stood on the side and just watched you:

frantic and yelling, panicky begging

to trust you, that you love him, that nothing happened.

This was the man that was gonna help your healing?

Make sure you’re in rehab while he was out dealing?

Finger in your face against a wall,

all over a phone number, a visit, a call?

We share a cigarette and then you guys leave

waiting to wear track marks again on your sleeve.

Rehab, then Covid, your excuse to go home.

Fat boy left for his baby mama, who would have known

Then a 47 year old named Carlos you met in rehab

After some time he left you for some girlfriend.

Now it’s a girl who gets girls for her pimp.

And it's all happening again

worse than we could think.

2022, shooting up every hour.

Anything you can get your hands on: uppers, downers.

But mostly that good stuff:

fentanyl laced heroin.

Three seizures last month.

We talked for the first time in over a year,

I haven’t seen your face in three.

My cousin was a junkie.

She’s still alive, but I mean, is she?

Rap Sheet Resume

I struggle to understand why you inject your veins with poison. 

Poison that you damn well know 

is rotting your mind, your body, your soul.

You live for it.

Lie for it.

Sell your body for it.

Punch your mother for it.

Pull a knife on a stranger to get money for it.

Let a man violate you over and over for it.

And you’re telling me 

that you would die for it?

I remember the first time I realized you were using:

Brighton Beach Starbucks, Rihanna was playing

a cover of a song by Tame Impala.

I look over at you and chuckle, I think that you’re dancing,

but you’re having a seizure while you’re standing.

I call your name to bring you out 

as your phone falls behind the espresso machine.

Sweat dribbling on your forehead, your face is bleached. 

I make you sit down, we take someone’s table 

They see my face and then they see yours

And they leave it alone, visibly concerned

I go to the barista to get you a water

My hands were shaking and I could only imagine

the expression that I must have had on my face

because he asked ME if I was ok,

like I was the one who needed that question.

“Should I call an ambulance?”

I asked you the same.

You insisted on no that you were ok.

I was in shock, sick, frozen in place.

We walked back to your crib, you had three more cigs. 

You say you need buspirone, you’re just withdrawing.

But I know it’s not that simple, it’s something more.

Possibly Xanax. I’ve seen it before. 

The look in your eyes, the same as the other:

our male cousin; my dad, your moms’ brother.

How could this happen? Two out of three?

And was there room in the story for what was happening to me?

Was this before or after your boyfriend went to jail?

For something like possession, assault, or stealing?

You sent him money whenever you could.

You knew he was using you, but he hooked you good.

It wasn’t the love, the sex or attention;

It was drugs all along, and that hunger only strengthened.

I finally see you for the first time in months

After learning you’d gone off the deep end.

It had started with alcohol at twelve or eleven

Weed and then Xanax, 2014

And now it’s heroin. 2016.

The first thing I do is look in your eyes

and I find myself grieving a girl still alive.

I wanted to see if you were still inside

but I could no longer see you, and a part of me died.

The part that thought we’d all be ok:

three Brooklyn babies, for the rest of our days.

You’d be my kids auntie, and my bridesmaid.

After our family eventually left,

we’d still have each other till it was our turn to lay.

Until then I had thought that with you I’d grow old. 

But I realized then that I could no longer hope.

You’re as thin as paper, and as white as snow.

All you talk about is your dealer,

it’s the only life you know.

You ask me for money, but I tell you no;

“I would if I could”, but I know that I won’t.

I can’t stand the thought of that one fatal dose

being at my hands, fuck no, I won’t.

You run out real quick, he finally pulled up!

Twenty five minutes later, you return with your grub.

I’m nosy as you go behind the bathroom door.

I suspect what’s going on, but I need more. 

You tell me to wait, you don’t want me to know

but I hear it go down and I listen close.

Baggie, aluminum foil, lighter, inhale

You come out calm and absent, your soul missing, eyes stale.

We sit some more, but then I gotta go.

It takes you a minute to hear me though.

Then you say “bye Steph”.

I wouldn’t see you again for years

Everything I know about you, I have to hear.

Rotting inside, your body shuts down

No period, no will

No control over your bowels

ER, maybe detox? 

Methadone? 

Get Clean?

It never lasts long even though we dream.

You shot up a boy with some issues in his brain

and he went into a coma, never to wake up again.

Did you care or understand? Do you realize that could be you?

Hooked up to wires, can’t speak and cant move?

But one day something clicks, I don’t remember why

but something touched and moves you inside. 

Rehab? You agree

You head upstate and you finally leave.

I took the bus to King’s Highway from Avenue Z.

A circle of families in the same boat

They tell your mom and I how you’re doing, the entire scope. 

They remind us of the real power of dope. 

Most don’t stay, most relapse, but some don’t

Maybe you’d be one, we really, truly hoped.

You end up there twice, both times in vain:

they kicked you out, or you left because you were in pain.

Up at 6 am, chores, games-

But that black tar heroin was calling your name.

You’re home, we have hope, you promise NA.

You go out for a bagel and dip for three days.

Relapse again, were we really that shocked?

The only way you’d get clean is getting killed or locked.

Now you’re tied up with a man from the projects, BK. 

I hear his name is fat boy, but that’s not his real name.

You say that he loves you because he cares:

when you’re trying to cop, he doesn’t let you leave!

He holds you when you cry and rolls up your sleeves!

gets you “good” drugs himself, from his own guy!

But soon you’re selling for him on the side.

Selling drugs and now selling your body-

Remember when you said it was merely a hobby?

Now look at you, getting decked in the face

by a man you think loves you; he’s a fucking disgrace

You were caught with bags, selling around coney

Maybe one or two times, local jail, off easy.

Another rehab, with fat boy behind you

I had little hope if I had to be truthful.

And you got kicked out for sneaking in drugs;

it was fatboy, of course, ol’ reliable scud.

Then you were running with some big time crew.

I’m not sure if it was fat boy that introduced you,

but it’s all the same shit: street drug ops,

selling and catching bodies, evading the cops.

When you weren’t home you were at some motel:

a big operation dope den by the canal.

Inevitable drug bust makes the local news

Drugs and guns, 14 in the crew.

The leader was Wiz, you’d mentioned Valentin.

Major trafficking charges, locked up 5 of the team.

You didn’t even finish your high school degree;

you, a conspirator, fresh off being a teen. 

21 years old off to Rikers to mold. 

I’d never seen the inside of a prison,

searched and scanned like I was scheming.

You in a jumpsuit with glass in between.

Your voice on the phone, I was dazed like it was a dream.

I’d never been to court for an arraignment; 

more lowkey than the movies and shows claimed.

Seeing criminals chained up and sentenced;

dealing, stealing, killing, possession. 

It was hard to believe that that was your world-

I still hear the way you said my name when we were girls.

I’d never seen a man pull out a 100 stack

to pay for Chinese food, no skin off his back.

Fat boy fed us good that day, waiting for you.

We knew where it came from, and he knew we knew.

Your mom and I waited in the back with him your man. 

Eventually she left, we talked, he planned. 

You were set to come out, and he sat up quick.

Seeing you in those shackles again made me sick.

Hearing your name and the charges stacked.

I wondered how it’d be if they locked you up for real. 

I wondered how it’d be if they let you go. 

Where would you get sober? 

Where would you heal?

Your first big charge, they’d let you out on one condition

That you stay in rehab but who were they kidding.

8-15 years if you failed to stay.

You know it was real but could you really be swayed?

A garbage bag of your stuff from Rikers,

a social worker with a rehab contact;

the paperwork from prison still hasn’t arrived

so she’s on the phone with one of the guys.

Meanwhile you and fat boy fight in the street

about a guy who visited you with whom he said you cheat.

You denied, you gaslit, he yelled and threatened;

all I could do was wait for it to end.

I didn’t know the situation, or what fat boy could do

so I stood on the side and just watched you:

frantic and yelling, panicky begging

to trust you, that you love him, that nothing happened.

This was the man that was gonna help your healing? 

Make sure you’re in rehab while he was out dealing?

Finger in your face against a wall, 

all over a phone number, a visit, a call?

We share a cigarette and then you guys leave

waiting to wear track marks again on your sleeve.

Rehab, then Covid, your excuse to go home.

Fat boy left for his baby mama, who would have known

Then a 47 year old named Carlos you met in rehab

After some time he left you for some girlfriend.

Now it’s a girl who gets girls for her pimp.

And it's all happening again

worse than we could think.

2022, shooting up every hour.

Anything you can get your hands on: uppers, downers.

But mostly that good stuff:

fentanyl laced heroin.

Three seizures last month.

We talked for the first time in over a year,

I haven’t seen your face in three.

My cousin was a junkie. 

She’s still alive, but I mean, is she?

I heard a fascinating sentiment about unmasking today from an autistic content creator’s mom, who is also autistic and has ADHD. His name is Toren Wolf and her name is Serenity Christine. She said “what if the mask has been there for so long that when I try to pry up the edges it’s fused with whatever was underneath? what if I am the mask?” … I’m going to let that one sit there for a moment.

…

A lot of neurodivergent women feel this way as masking has been an inherent part of our lives since the beginning. It was and is a survival mechanism, socially, professionally, among others. This is a phenomena that occurs in many different types of neurodivergence such as ADHD, autism, and so called personality disorders, to name a few.

My experience with masking is a fuzzy one to ascertain the start of but I believe it began in elementary school where there was more explicit policing of behavior than pre-k or day care; maybe I was just lucky. But I recall school being incredibly stressful in every way imaginable. I remember constantly being dysregulated, impatiently waiting to be picked up every single day so I could go home and be myself. I recall getting in trouble constantly for talking, moving, and even, among my peers, for the way I socialized. In every report card, the teacher would point out that I was a good student but that I talked way too much. And talk I did; there are home videos from when I was around or less than 2 years old of me on my feet, running, dancing, and jumping around from toy to toy, talking, singing, and making noises almost constantly. I reacted strongly to being forced to do things, I got overwhelmed easily, but most importantly, I was, for the most part, unmasked. But the me pre-public school and the me in public school almost felt like two different people. Over time I became unsure of myself, I retreated into myself and began forcing myself to be different. I recognized that being me, that simply existing in ways that were all I have ever known, got me in trouble, ostracized, made fun of, and excluded. And I tried. I acted like the girls I saw around me that seemed to be normal. I even remember one day in high school asking a “friend” of mine what I could do to be different, more normal, more like her. I don’t remember her answer because the very act of asking that question filled me with so much anxiety that I can only remember my beating heart and racing mind, attempting to analyze how she was perceiving me and whether or not I said the right thing, as she answered something. Because of this I have had an unstable sense of identity since I was a child, one that I still struggle with as a 28 year old woman.

The experiencing of masking is one every neurodivergent girl is all too familiar with, unless she was lucky enough to be in an environment and among adults that didn’t dare make her question herself or perceive herself as weird, different, quirky, or wrong. This might be because of a neurotypical but kind family, or one that is neurodivergent and accepting or ignorant of it. Sometimes these girls are home-schooled, or attend schools that value traits such as freedom, kindness, expression, and acceptance. I’m not sure what the percentage of this is compared to those in oppressive environments, but the ones in the latter, learn to mask from a young age, and for the sake of their survival.

Some people do exist in families where many are neurodivergent and either unaware of or simply accepting of it, and thus neurodivergent children aren’t perceived and/or treated as different (my parents are undiagnosed neurodivergent as well, and they often times simply didn’t perceive me as different or weird, as I was behaving like them; perhaps sometimes I behaved in ways that got them in trouble growing up, prompting them to not want to do the same to me). I consider myself lucky that my home is a safe space to unmask, at least most of the time.

But the world is a different story. I feel blessed that I have made friends and connections with whom I feel comfortable unmasking; I would venture as far as to say that they expect me to be unmasked, because they know when I’m not being myself, and prefer I do. Not many people have this and I know how blessed I am. But outside of those friends and family members, the world is more harsh, and unmasking is more complicated.

I exist with the goal of always being myself, and I think I succeed most of the time. But sometimes I don’t even realize I’m masking. Sometimes I like the person I am when I mask. Sometimes it’s unsafe to risk unmasking because if the wrong people perceive me in the wrong way, it could be detrimental— to my job, for example. This has happened before and it made my experience at that job horrid. I find that this is the case with work environments more often than not. Even glimmers of unmasking that feel good, and like they went well, leave me feeling anxious about how I was perceived and if I ruined everything. How much of masking is conscious? How much of unmasking is within our control, when many are traumatized by when their mask has slipped? How many have never had the chance to unmask, or had to mask at all? And how much ought we mask?

So, masking and unmasking are complicated. What is clear is that, long-term, it is unhealthy to prevent yourself from engaging in behaviors that regulate your nervous system, and it’s unhealthy to never allow yourself to be yourself. Some believe you ought to mask to have a good life and that’s OK, others believe the best life is fully unmasked. Whatever your beliefs are, it is clear that there is finally open discussion happening about masking. The little neurodivergent, ostracized girl calcified inside of me feels like she has been freed from her cage.

I generally have been craving to return to this state where I am able to listen to my body; When I am tired or feeling like I'm getting ill, I want to rest. When I am feeling sad or bad, I want to sit with it instead of running away. When my body needs exercise, I need to do that. When I am craving certain foods or even a fast, I want to honor that.

Life fluctuates, naturally, and sometimes I am connected with my interoception (and will-power), and other times less-so. While being on vacation, I have been inspired to take better care of myself as I have seen how great my body feels when I exercise daily. And this whole debacle with the food poisoning has made me re-appreciate feeling healthy in my gut.

But listening to your body is a little different for women because of our menstrual cycles; unlike men, we experience hormone fluctuations an changes on a monthly cycle, not a daily one. So the typical model of feeling one way in the morning, another in the afternoon, and another way at night, every single day, in the same way, does not work for us. Who else has incredibly productive weeks, active