Jordan Beavers

Heroin didn’t show up in my life as a monster. No, that would’ve been too easy to resist.It came as a whisper. A tender voice that curled around my ear and said, “Come here, baby. Let me help you forget.” And I believed it. I let it take my hand.

At first, it felt like a kiss on the forehead after a long cry. Like a warm bath after a week of cold showers. It wrapped around me like an old lover, familiar, soft, forgiving. It made the world quieter, slower, blurred just enough that I didn’t have to feel the jagged edges of life slicing at my skin anymore.But it wasn’t a hug. It was a noose.

That soft whisper became a scream. That bath became a drowning. That kiss on the forehead was the last breath I took before being buried alive. didn't fall in love with heroin. I ran to it, arms open, desperate and broken. And it welcomed me like it had been waiting my whole life. I thought I found salvation, but I was dancing barefoot in a field of broken glass.

The high didn’t last long. It never does. One hit and I tasted heaven, just enough to know what I'd spend the next eight years chasing. Chasing and chasing and chasing, always just a little too slow to catch it again.

Eventually, I wasn’t using to get high anymore. I was using to not die. My body didn't just crave heroin, it demanded it. Screamed for it. Tore at my insides for it. Without it, I was a rabid animal locked in a cage of my own flesh. My bones ached with need. My skin burned with shame.

I would’ve, I did, give everything for it.

I sold my peace. I sold my body. I sold my future.

I would have sold my soul, but I think it was already gone.

And heroin? Heroin never said thank you. Never looked me in the eyes while it drained me dry. It just kept taking. It took my self-respect and stomped on it. It took my relationships and burned them to the ground. It took my dignity and left me crawling across gas station bathroom tiles, shivering and vomiting and begging a god I didn’t believe in to let me die already.

I remember clawing at my arms, my chest, the air, trying to dig something out of me that couldn’t be touched. I remember sitting on a stained mattress in a stranger’s house, hollow eyed and shaking, knowing I’d trade anything to feel that warmth again, even if just for an hour.

That’s what heroin is. It’s a lie you start telling yourself so often it becomes your reality.

But I didn’t die. God knows I tried. Or maybe I didn't try hard enough. Or maybe, somehow, I was meant to survive it, to remember it.And even now, even now, I can remember the way it made me feel like everything was going to be okay, just for a moment. That’s the part no one talks about enough.

The brutal truth that the most dangerous part of heroin… is that it feels like love at first.

But it isn’t love. It’s a loaded gun dressed up like a lullaby.

I was in love with something that wanted me dead.

And I almost let it win.

But I’m here. Bruised, clean, and clawing my way back to life with bloody fingers. I still smell the smoke. I still taste the poison. But I’ve got breath in my lungs, and I won’t waste it whispering to a ghost that tried to kill me.

If you’re still in love with the monster, know this: it won’t kiss you goodnight. It’ll slit your throat and leave you wondering if you deserved it.

And if you’re lucky enough to get out, like me, don’t forget what it was. Don’t ever let yourself romanticize the devil.

Because heroin never loved you.

It just knew how to fake it better than anyone else.