The following was written as I sat dieing of pneumonia that I'd contracted while addicted to Heroin.

The pain and the fear and the chaos and the injustice and the lies and the bad surprises and the sorrow and the stupidity and the unintellegence all whirl around me sometimes like some twister that's my size right off the rack. So I sink my boots deep in the mud and I clench my teeth and ball my fists and stand up straight and say, "No, you ain't gonna get me!" ... "You WILL NOT defeat me!" and this goes on second after minute after hour after day after week after month and then one day I just want it all to stop... just for a few minutes or an hour or a day... just stop whirling around me for a little while. And I know that eventually it will end and I will win and I will again be strong and I will again be painting the most beautiful and fantastic paintings I have ever painted in my life... but that's not going to happen right now. That's going to happen in the future. The future that is nearer now than it was... so much nearer that I can taste it. I CAN taste the freedom. But right now the future has not arrived and I hurt. And sometimes I don't care anymore so I go out and I buy the heroin and I take it and I sit back and for a few hours the whirlwind dies down to a draft and I can relax... even though I know that I will pay dearly with horrible pain and depression... and in fact I have given the whirlwind food to whirl even faster for awhile ... 08/15/97