Singing Lies - By Marni Mann

Singing Lies
- Marni Mann

The song was bitter; its taste was sweet poison like the melody.
The voice was embedded, “You crave the rush.”
I memorized the pitch, became the tone.

I listened, five-years worth of repeated lines.
“You’re hungry for the nod.”
I heard the lyrics and closed my eyes. I nodded to the beat and bowed to its lies.

I heard the lyrics and opened my eyes. My stomach churned for more sweet pain.
“Find me,” the wax-paper packets, which were filled with white powder, screamed.
Each verse was a command.

I didn’t fight the music.
I couldn’t fight the sound.
“Dump the powder onto the spoon; heat it, light it, turn white powder into liquid lies.”

The song made me powerless.
“Take the orange cap off the syringe and fill the chamber.”
That, I managed just fine.

My family, "Stop this madness. The song killed your best friend."
“Empty the chamber into your vein.”
 It wasn’t going to kill me. Was that another lie?

I knew what I was doing; when to listen, how much to take in.
“You’ve fallen for the steady rhythm; selling your soul to buy the powder.”
And when I heard those lyrics and danced to that song, it didn’t bring me into a dark hole.

It warmed me like a blanket; it erased my past.
It showed me the quietness of the waves.
“You’ve fallen for me.”

And those waves?
They had powdered tips and a liquid center.
And when the waves hit my body?

The song became a twisted, dark copy of Staying Alive.
"Now taste me again.”
The purpose of life was to sing heroin’s sweet melody.


“You’ve fallen for me.”
I heard the lyrics and closed my eyes.
I nodded to the beat and bowed to its lies.




A New Englander at heart, Marni Mann, now a Floridian is inspired by the sandy beaches and hot pink sunsets of Sarasota. A writer of literary fiction, she taps a mainstream appeal and shakes worldwide taboos, taking her readers on a dark, harrowing, and gritty journey. When she’s not nose deep in her laptop, she’s scouring for chocolate, traveling, reading, or walking her four-legged children. Her debut novel, Memoirs Aren’t Fairytales, was published by Booktrope in December 2011.

Website: http://www.marnismann.com/
Twitter: @MarniMann

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