god

[Erthona]

Tom,

" So, how much is veracity...first or second hand? If first hand I cannot argue truth, if second hand I still can't...but I can argue translation."

All that is not symbolic is factually accurate.
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"I twist my tongue inside my mouth, as I exert just the right amount of pressure on the syringe.

The break at as was meant to create tension, could do without the comma though.
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I suppose I could say
"I push the point (needle) down onto the cotton lying in the spoon. Although the "it" would seem to be obviously the syringe. Thoughts. But no I do not exert pressure on the plunger, I do exert pressure on the syringe. The cotton filters the impurities from the powder and water. To do so the needle must first be pushed down into the cotton. The cotton will obviously not work as a filter if the needle is hanging above it in the air.
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" BANG! Way too technically angled. So, you picked up an alcohol swab pack and tore it open with your teeth...I get it. It was square, you say...and made of paper. That IS interesting....and it ENCLOSED an ALCOHOL (60% w/w) saturated swab made of a polyester and cotton mix. This isn't sarcasm...I feel the shifts in consistency."

You could be right, although the hyper realism was purposeful, as this mimics the addicts state of mind. I will consider.
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"Getting wordy...like all religious testimonials. This is not in character at all. I know that junkies are not all morons...I know some who are academics...I know some who are intuhlektuals...but I know none who are not what they are when they shoot up. Your boy seems to flicker about multiple personalities...oh damn, now you have an excuse"

Actually it's called amphetamine psychosis
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There is much work that needs to be done and I will take on your other suggestions. As always I appreciate the in depth critique. Sorry it took me so long to respond.

dale

I slowly pull back on the plunger.

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lizziep,

Thank you for your gracious comments,

dale

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Kolemath,

" My breath goes out as the fluid
slowly steals its way up the hollow plastic shaft,
a release that is almost orgasmic: as someone mentioned a bit preemptive, but what's the release? its connection to god?"

Simply the release of the fluid from the spoon into the shaft. In a sense the potential has been actualized, but not yet used.
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"I caress it, as a lover would caress a nipple. the nipple image doesn't fit for me; can veins be shafts if we're going for sex? "
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" mundane and ecstatic connect to ritual/religion how?"

Well I could write an exegesis on that, but as that is not even in the poem I think I will forbear. It says the mundane is transmuted into the ecstatic. An example of this is the last supper where wine is transmuted to the blood of Christ and bread into his body. You can substitute "holy" for ecstatic if you wish, but in the esoteric traditions it means the same thing.
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The idea was that one strokes the vein (where the injection will occur) in a similar way that a lover would stroke a nipple: to create arousal and as foreplay to sex. As both Central Nervous system stimulants and sex effect the limbic system, i.e., the pleasure center in the brain, the build up to climax follows a similar path with both.
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" your blessing or god's?" Mine, as I am the one with the drug. Them getting the drug is the blessing, whereas the blessing of God might be peace of mind.

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"so is the drug the god or is the drug the holy sacrament?"

The addiction is the "god" the drug is the "sacrament". Although at times they seem almost interchangeable. It is not uncommon in native cultures to identify the plant, such as peyote as having a spirit and that spirit Mescalito as the god of the plant. So some of this draws from that tradition, not just the Abrahamic/Christian one.
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"I demand. the language of religion is lost here to my reading, unless the sexual violence of circumcision can be worked in; what other god images are sexually violent? how about deuteronomy 28? yikes..
They would give me their first born, if good old testament reference"

I think that is answered with: "No other religion demands, or receives, such devotion." Although God did demand Abraham kill Isaac, not to mention the flood. Allowed his own son to be brutally killed, do I need to go on?
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" again, can 'next time' fit the idea of god/worshiper more closely?"

I think you are maybe trying to makes this allegorical, when it is really just an extended metaphor. This is not a one to one correlation. The template follows Rumi more closely than it does any particular religion.
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Thank you for your time in going over this and thinking about it. You have made some very valid comments, and some suggestion I will take on board for the rewrite. Thanks for your help.

dale