this isn't much of anything. i don't even remember writing it, haha, but it's based off something a good friend of mine said to me a while ago.

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It's only eleven at night when I realize that I'm absolutely, by all means, way too high to sleep, and that fact combined with that fact that I'm convinced that there are snakes crawling all over my bedroom floor, even though I know that it's all in my mind, is probably a good explanation for the panic that follows. Don't ask me how I manage to find my phone, because I really have no idea, and don't ask me how I managed to dial her number either, because I'm just as clueless about that.

What I do know is that when she answers, I realize that I'm too high to even speak coherently, because even though what I'm saying is perfectly comprehensible in my mind, she meets my panicked, drug induced ramblings with a confused, "What?"

The word what has always seemed so harsh to me.

I cough, notice little rainbows in the air and try to ignore the face that's sticking out of my radiator, and try not to cry when I tell her, sounding absolutely pathetic, that I can't sleep, that I need to sleep because there are snakes everywhere and if I can't go to sleep, the snakes will kill me.

She tells me that maybe I should call animal control and ask them if they can do anything about that.

It's the part of me that understands that the snakes and the faces aren't real that laughs, but then the drugs tell me that I shouldn't laugh, so I stop and then I'm laying in bed with a cigarette dangling from my fingers and my mouth hanging open like I've just been electrocuted.

She asks if I'm okay, and I mumble a soft, "Mhm," before I change my mind and tell her, "No, I'm not. Nothing is okay. Life is cruel and I'm seeing snakes and faces in my room but I know they're not real, but I mean, if they are real, what if they're poisonous?"

I'm suddenly captivated by the thought of poison, and then there's this awful pain in my stomach and I realize, oh my god, I must be dying.

"The drugs are poison, Ellen," I consider telling her that I'm dying, but I can't be dying. I'm not dying because I'm fifteen years old and fifteen year olds don't just drop dead.

Yes they do, but that's other people. Everything bad in life happens to somebody else and we're supposed to learn from their mistakes. Obviously, that's working out great because I'm fifteen years old and tripping on acid and drunk, even though I went through the DARE program and heard all about how drugs eat away people's brains and ruin lives and nobody realizes until they're living in an empty room, staring at the floor and searching for little white crystals.

"Sarah, how high are you?"

Sobriety talks again, what little part there is left, and tells her again that there are snakes everywhere and that if I don't make it out of this alive, I love her with all my heart in the most not romantic way possible.

"Oh,"

"Yeah,"

If somebody were to just look at the situation without knowing any of the feelings, they'd think that this was the weirdest thing in the world because Ellen is my ex girlfriend and Freddie, my not quite boyfriend is passed out on my bed next to me with an empty bottle of Bacardi in his hand, wearing nothing but his polka dot boxers and snoring just the tiniest little bit.

"Are you with-"

"Yeah," I tell her, before she can even finish because I know who she's going to ask about. "Can I come over? Or can you talk? Or something? Please?"

I'm well aware of how pathetic I sound, and of how messed up and stupid this whole situation is because most people feel happy when they drink and especially when they get laid, but I'm laying here and I'm miserable and I don't even really know why. I just know that this is what always happens when I smoke weed or drink or do anything, really, but I always come back and do it again because I have a good time until I'm left alone.

I guess that makes this entire phone call even more fucked up and pathetic.

She could lecture me, or tell me to leave her alone and let her sleep, or just plain out tell me that I'm an idiot and I should know better by now, but she doesn't and it means the whole damn world to me, and then I feel like crying because nothing has ever seemed so nice.

"Come over, okay? The back door's open," She tells me, and there's something in the way she talks that absolutely breaks my heart because even though I'm convinced that nobody cares, she cares.

"Okay," I mumble, amazed at how numb my mouth feels, and it's not until after I hang up and pull my shirt back on that I realize I didn't tell her how much it meant to me.

I sit there for a minute and feel like crying all over again, because there's all of these feelings flooding through my head all of a sudden and it's the weirdest feeling because when I'm sober I try not to let myself admit that I feel anything at all, but now I'm feeling and I don't know what to do.

I look down at Freddie and consider waking him up for a moment. I consider not going over to Ellen's house and bothering her, and just undressing myself and the boy in front of me and fucking all my problems away, but then I realize how little good that will do because I'm anything but in love with him.

It's a good thing that all of the streetlights are working, and it's an even better thing that Ellen lives down the street from me, because I'm not sure I would've been able to walk much further than three hundred feet alone at night in my current condition.

As it is, by the time I've stumbled up to her room, I'm convinced that a wolf with blood red eyes has been following me down the street, and if I didn't get inside it would steal my soul.

"Ellen?" I call softly, my hand just barely brushing against her doorknob, like I'm not sure if I should barge into her room and start crying and bitching about life or if I should wait for a formal invitation.

"Mhm?"

I guess I take that as my invitation, because then I'm sitting on her bed next to her with my head on her shoulder and I really am crying now, and it feels so fucking weird because I haven't cried in nine months.

"The drugs are poison, Ellen," I tell her again, but I've realized something since the last time I said it, because I continue, "Really, it's like, what is being high but overwhelming your brain to the point that it tells you that there are things there that really aren't?"

She gives me this look that says that she's known that all along, and then I look over at her, embarrassed and still crying, and laugh at myself.

"Bad trip man, bad trip," I mumble, laying back on her bed and holding her hand like it's a beacon of sanity, and I guess, at that moment, it is.

"I had sex with him again," I tell her, and I don't know why it bothers me all of a sudden but it does. Freddie isn't the first boy or girl I've fucked, not even close, but the whole idea of sex suddenly bothers me, as though I'm doing something terribly wrong by wanting to get laid and actually being able to do it.

Ellen gives me this sympathetic look like she understands exactly what's going through my mind, and I convince myself that she does. She probably does, because I've never met anybody who's been able to read me as well as she can.

"You don't love him, do you?"

I shake my head, my eyes closed tight as if it might make reality any more real. It doesn't.

"Then why do you even bother?" She asks, and I can tell that she's looking down at me even though my eyes are still closed. At least, I'm pretty sure she is. I could be wrong.

"Because I'm lonely," I tell her, even though she already knows that. Anybody who looks at me and thinks for a minute or two about the things I do can figure out that much. "Not that it helps anything,"

"Then why do you bother?" She repeats, and I sit and think about it for a minute.

"Because I keep telling myself that it might make things better, like maybe I'll find somebody to love if I keep fucking everybody who wants it. I mean, it makes perfect sense, have you seen how many girlfriends I've managed to keep?" Even as fucked up as I am, I'm still a sarcastic little fucker.

"Sarah, look at me," She tells me, and there's something in her voice, that, even though her tone should scare me, I know that she cares. She's Ellen. Of course she cares. If she didn't care, I wouldn't be here right now. If she didn't care, I would've woken up Freddie and I would be having more meaningless, drunk sex right now.

She does care though, so I'm not.

I look up at her through the mess of hair that was, a few hours ago, perfectly straightened.

"Do you know how much energy you waste?"

"I'm sorry, I'll turn my playstation off next time before I leave," I tell her, grinning sheepishly and feeling like an asshole.

"If you want somebody to love you, put half as much energy into that as you do into drugs and sex,"

I can't help but feel like she just slapped me, even though I know she's absolutely right. Or maybe that's why it feels like that. Yeah, it's probably that. It's because she's right.

"You drink and you smoke and you fuck and you waste all your energy, Sarah, and you have nothing to show for it, you know that?"

What right does she have to tell me how to live? If I want to waste away and be another lesson to another class of snot nosed DARE brats, god damnit, I will.

She opens her mouth like she's going to say something else, but nothing comes out and then we just sit there in silence, listening to the clock hanging on her wall while it ticks.

She's right though. What do I have to show for all the nights I wasted except a list of fuck toys and a sick sense of self importance, as though the drugs have really shown me anything new or brilliant at all?

"Ellen?" I can hear my voice crack, and I honestly couldn't care less.

"Yeah?"

I open my mouth a couple of times, trying to form some kind of comprehensible sentence that'll maybe show at least something of what's going through my head right now, but nothing works. Nothing's enough, because I just realized that I'm not the only one who realizes what I'm doing.

I don't know what it is that made me start crying again, and I can't explain it any better than saying that it was like getting hit in the face by a brick wall hurtling towards me at fifty miles an hour, all made up of stupid pent up emotions and self hatred, but I can explain that the next thing I knew, I was crying and drunkenly trying to hug her, and just overall making a complete fool of myself.

I'm terrified at first when she just sits there like a statue, and I feel like maybe I've killed her or she just isn't going to hug me back, and I really, really need somebody to just hug me right now because I'm so cold and she's so warm and maybe I won't feel so alone.

"Don't cry, okay?" She tells me, and I can feel her hugging me and I just sit there and cry my eyes out like I'm five years old and I've just fallen out of a window or been denied candy.

I guess I finally got the sleep that I wanted so badly, because when I opened my eyes again, they were crusty and gross and the clock I'd listened to ticking away on the wall said that it was ten in the morning.

I look down at her, and wonder for a minute if maybe I should wake her up and cry some more and thank her for just caring, for putting up with all of this, but I can't, so I roll off her bed and rub my eyes, tiptoe out of her house and back into my own, feeling surprisingly okay for somebody who should be hungover out of their mind.

When I finally make my way back into my room, Freddie's gone.

I stand there for a moment or two, and wait for myself to feel like I've been slapped across the face yet again and start chain smoking and chugging vodka in another pathetic attempt to make myself happy, but the feeling doesn't come.

I sit down on my bed, next to where he was when I left last night, trace my fingers over his shape on my mattress, and laugh at myself because he's an asshole anyway, and it's not like I liked him at all, so why should I be hurt?

She's right. She's so, so right, and I guess she really can read me like a book. She's always been right and she can tell me what I'm feeling better than I can half the time, and this is no exception.

He left an eight ball of coke behind, sitting on the bright yellow bookshelf I built with my dad when I was four, and I don't need it nearly as much as I would've twelve hours ago.

I look down at my computer, left on with some girl's Facebook profile on the screen.

People always told me I was good at writing when I was younger. When I was in fifth grade and we had publishing parties, parents told me that they couldn't believe that somebody my age wrote the things I wrote. I never saw it in myself, but it made me smile anyway.

Maybe I could try that again. Maybe something might come from it this time. Maybe not.

It's worth trying though, right?