[Almost Blue] on Chet Baker's Opioid Sonata

 It’s the stroke of midnight, during a stroke of madness; I’m thinking of Chet Baker’s unashamed, unabashed, undeniable free fall into self-destruction, his very own, designed, composed, directed by the rise of his birth, fall of his physical ability, theatrics thoroughly thinned as so even the undeniably flawed may come as they are, feel no intent at attrition, attribute meager prayer, leave as they came; if only to be reassured by a fanciful deity they’ve no belief in, that those very flaws they possess will ensure natural selection would defy its very own process of elimination principle, just to spare the fool.

            Take the lighter to the base of the spoon, wait for the sizzle of the tar, draw in the cc’s needed after the ever-rising tolerance, slip the tourniquet over the brachial, expose the bulging channels in the antecubital space, brace ready, hold fast for the pinch of the needle’s near microscopic puncture, wait for the flash of blood, the indication, now the thumb commences to press the contents, the centuries-old known to man, inside, seconds lapse, just but a few, until euphoria breaks the silence with its impish liege of serotonin and dopamine, the tip of the lagging unfiltered Lucky Strike, weakly held between the lips is lit, trumpet is clasped in clammy palm; Chet Baker is again born.

            An Opioid Sonata is the continuation by an alternative means made a way of life refusing to be lived by any other means. And if by some means, some miraculous occurrence, as the chance of genetics within the human species should arise, Baker’s Sonata rises to that very occasion. Nothing can be mistaken; sadness is no longer a near but distant cousin to melancholia; bliss is estranged, rather shunned, from blessedness. Then and only then, is the canvas for one to paint their own destiny a possibility because all that holds the individual hostage, are those self-impositions that render themselves uncompromising when they’ve overheard the pillow-talk in the late nights, when the orgasm has been weakened to be conquered by the timeless spasm where electrical currents can no longer detect the static of dwindling of neurons.

Dontrell Lovet't