Jim was each a protector and an enslaver. He taught me Rangers have been the most effective staff not simply in Glasgow however the world. (His world was mainly Glasgow anyway.) Jim was an astute thief and laborious man who in a unique life may have been a frontrunner of males. Jim was a ramshackle, tracksuited common of the streets. The heroin appeared to assuage and scale back my signs of psychological well being challenges.
Life in shabby tents taking medication and begging grew to become a brand new routine. A Hindu charity gave us curry and pita bread within the park most evenings.(It was at all times, and I imply at all times, lentils).
Community
Much of the time I felt lonely,
Confused and anxious.
I yearned to slot in.
So,
I took the danger of shopping for smack in Kings Cross
For Jim and Sal.
For a time,
I belonged.
This nightmarish interval got here to an finish once I noticed my mum walking her canine within the park. With nice compassion my mum, struggling herself in low-paid work, took me home. I slept on a settee mattress that after sleeping baggage felt like five-star lodge consolation. The subsequent day a kindly native GP identified me with schizophrenia and I used to be sectioned underneath the Mental Health Act.
After hospital I stayed with Mum and we helped one another. Olanzapine and sertraline medicine changed opiates and I progressively recovered, though I nonetheless expertise some signs.
I attend a charity that helps folks with disabilities to provide paintings. The Big Issue has been form sufficient to publish a number of of my drawings within the Street Art part. Big Issue has been a constant assist to me over recent years. It conjures up and assists individuals who undergo from poverty, are experiencing homelessness or psychological well being points.
Loose Change
I begged outdoors the Catholic Church
Close to the park the place we had our tents.
“Any loose change please” my mantra.
Jim scrawled on a ragged little bit of cardboard
With a run-out marker,
“Money for Hostel.”
The spelling so unhealthy
It would possibly as properly have been Martian.
The money was not for a hostel.
Smack shocked my undiagnosed schizophrenia
Back into hiding.
Unsettling voices receded.
I nonetheless heard old London ghosts
Who watched and waited for me to make an error.
I begged to feed my thirst.
My e book Transmissions contains poems, tales and drawings to depict the heroin scene in London. It was printed by Write London, funded partly by the Arts Council. The title of Transmissions is a nod to Joy Division and my auditory hallucinations. It is available at Housmans book shop in King’s Cross, Central London.
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