It was almost 2 years ago that an exboyfriend of mine died of a heroin overdose. I was re-reminded of him as I looked at this body modification chat site. John had all sorts of body mods…a 0 gauge tongue peircing, 2 gauge apadravya, massive permanently fused nut rings, 1″ stretched earlobes, and on, and on and on. Whenever people would ask him “Did that hurt?” he would drawl “It was a sensation.” He would drug himself, cut himself, pierce himself, all with very little sensation. It made little sense to me, with my soft skin and horrid fear of needles.

He was a massive drug user, and in my year with him we gobbled ecstasy, valium, mescaline, acid, mushrooms, crystal, coke…we broke up because I grew out of being high all the time and he, several years older than me, wasn’t ever able to stop. John was really into doing DMT a few months before his death, explaining that it was like peeking in death’s door.

I always had an image of him dieing, drifing off into his heroin haze, thinking to himself “This is crappy junk. I’m not getting high at all.” It would have been typical of him. I wasn’t sad when he died, but I do think about him frequently, and now is one of those times.