It wasn’t supposed to be like this. As a little girl, I dreamt of having a pony. He would be strong and his coal black mane would glisten in the midwest sun.

As a young woman, I dreamt of a simple, yet wonderful life. I’d have a career, a dashing, loving husband, beautiful kids, and a white picket fence surrounding my quaint, comfy house with the bright red door.

I never aspired to be wealthy, pampered or maintained. I treasured life, laughter, and simplicity. I envisioned a happy family and a love filled home. I wanted giggles and grins and random hugs; family dinners and Mom and Dad date nights.

That was then.

Tonight he is out, again. Tonight I will hide my last $106.23 dollars I have until my next end of the month payday in my daughters left pink ballet flat deep within her closet. I will hide the bank card with access to our last $14.76 left in the account underneath the plant in the livingroom. I will attempt to sleep before he comes home and wake long before he wakes to pay the gas company and buy a few basics before he takes more. I will dream shattered dreams.

This is my life, the wife of drunken coke junkie. Long gone are the days of family dinners and giggles. Everyday is a battle. Him against me, Coke against him, and hate and rage against us both.

I look in the mirror and wonder where I went. Is it possible the hollow eyes that stare back at me are mine? I don’t remember when I got so old, weak, and worn. Is it possible that as a newly turned 37 year old, my life is over, am I done? Is this it.

I struggle to keep positive for my children: we are close, we are a family, we love, we hug, we laugh, but I have failed. In my dreams I am a lioness, strong and resiliant. I clash teeth and bare my nails, mauling the evil before it can reach them. In reality, I am sickened, ashamed, and heartbroken as I feel the pain they, too, have been burdened to bare. As much as I tried to protect them, as hard as I fought and continue to fight, as I look them over, one by one, I can still see tiny shards of cocaine shattered dreams glistening in their smiles. I can still see signs of the junkie’s blow dusted lightly through their souls. I still see what they claim not to know. I feel the haunting rage they have yet to understand.

This is my reality, the cocaine junkie express, where everything’s mangled, distorted, and sick. This is where the train has no stops, you don’t need a ticket, where the weight of daily life crushes each and every soul who wonders in it’s path. There’s no winning, no sense praying. There is no magic cure and love, marriage, family, and dreams mean nothing.

There’s no future and the past is long lost; pawned along with the car, stereo and television set. Reality is now, the present, the cocaine daily. A world where everyday, every venom spewed word of hate and humiliation will repeat, every coke induced thought of paranoia will remanifest and accusingly bludgeon you over and over and over. This is a little corner of the world where laughing, loving, peaceful souls are devoured, a transistion towards limbo, just down the street around the corner from hate and dispair. This is where the loving and faithful go to await death.

This is where I live. Welcome to cocaine shattered dreams.