We sharpened our needles on stones.

flash fiction

I used to keep a shaving blade in my mouth. I was injecting into big veins by then, the ones in my legs, injecting at a 90-degree angle. When those veins collapsed, I injected into my groin. I had abscesses coating both ankles and kept a piece of razor blade in my mouth. When the neighbors or the cops caught me stealing, I would cut the insides of my cheeks and pretend to vomit. The crowd would see the blood and think they’d thumped it out of me and would leave me alone. I come from a middle-class family. Seventeen criminal cases against me. I…