Drug Free - By Nirvana Soogreem

Written By: Nirvana Soogreem

Category: Short Story

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Nirvana Soogreem presents "Drug Free," a compelling short story submitted to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Delving into the complexities of love and addiction, Soogreem's narrative weaves a tale that questions the true nature of freedom from dependency. Her evocative exploration of emotions reveals the intricate dance between desire and self-restraint, engaging readers in a profound literary experience.

About the Work

In "Drug Free," Nirvana Soogreem crafts a powerful narrative that blurs the lines between love and addiction. Her poignant prose captures the intense emotions of longing and the intoxicating power of relationships. Through vivid imagery and introspective reflections, she invites readers to examine the parallels between romantic entanglements and substance dependency, leaving an indelible mark on the reader's psyche.

Drug Free

Original Submission by Nirvana Soogreem

Drug free

No Rushing in the veins

No Pounding of the heart

Is it really worth it to be drug free?

This, my drug, I’ve contemplated a while

So alluring and tempting to the exterior vision.

I’ve always abstained

And kept my mouth and nose clean of the devil’s sugar

Even when drugs have grazed my skin so tenderly

Or even attempted to force their ways into my mouth

And thrust themselves into my body.

Asking whether love is a drug

It is like asking whether social media is a religion.

The principals are the same.

The concepts are correlated and the evidence is glaring

Once you accept the initial threshold of doubt and climb the barrier of a bold new Perspective. Love is a drug

Because dictates impulsive decisions

You'd never do sober

Love is a drug

Because you can falter so incidentally into spiraling addiction

Love is a drug

Because you dip your nose further and further to chase the first rush

Love is a drug

Because it makes you feral and irrational

Love is a drug

Because it can kill you.

Love is usually compared to doves and flowers

And the beautiful ocean horizon.

But Love is a drug, that of

An acidic, crushed, smoked, snorted, inhaled and injected nature,

But even just as addicting by breathing it in like perfume

And then never being able to divert your mind from the same scent

Until your nostrils bleed out

And you lose your sense of smell entirely.

Addiction begins simple

And ends in dampened palms combing your scalp

Searching for means to equip the next fix

While powder drifts like snow off your lips,

Your pupils dilated yet blind

And breathing like matted locks of wind; inconsistent.

Love does the same, especially as love is less simple to acquire than a spoon, syringe or rubber band.

You grow agitated in waiting for the love rush

The wet wave to soak your thirsty skin

The lick of validation like the thrust of a crushing blizzard through your nose against your skull. Slamming your head so vigorously against unclean tables at clubs

It almost breaks your nose

And mimics how vicariously you throw your body around unsanitary hands, Which abuse your body

Like the snorting abuses one's brain.

Not because you're dirty

But because the only clean hands had left,

And the dirt of the unsavoury hands has tainted you,

Morally and physically.

The splashes of “being wanted” are the burning shots of scalding alcohol Which pierces your throat and drowns your spirits and drains your thoughts free Of the waiting for the love itself.

The blurring of reality and smudges of the room around you

And the easing weight is being lifted

Like a baby being picked by a mother’s arms

To be held safely against her chest.

But all you really feel is the swirling fire down your throat.

Alcohol is hardly ever delicious, but, my, the feeling is.

Bad for me.

My parents taught me to turn my head to drugs

So explain to me why I twirled straight into your arms

And crushed my face against yours

Knowing my skin would attach and melt into yours

Knowing my heart would get addicted to the way yours beat

Knowing my fingers could never unlatch the intertwining of the veins of yours From the veins of mine.

And my feet would drum against the ground until I tried to leap

And fly to the world you live in.

A foreign world beyond the container country or built up boarders,

Not because I loved the places you went but because you made me see why they were places you loved.

This drug.

Made me feel as though I was running through the warmest oceans Of the bluest seas and the sun clung to my skin as though it loved me As much as my drug did.

It was all I searched for and so graceful to the palette and tongue,

It soothed me in ways I ached to be

As it slid down my back and across my chest like a consistent cooling breath On a feverish body.

It made my brown eyes expand to see universes above stars,

And ignited my heart to yearn for passionate wonders

And secret realms of hidden love

And the sweetest imagination and crazy ambition.

The recognition and acceptance without judgement

The welcoming warmth

And guidance, which coaxed my mouth opened even when

I said: I’d never taken drugs before.

I spoke in tongues which twisted beyond human cognition,

But the language of souls and silence found in only the traces of trauma We hid beneath our hearts

It spoke multitudes surpassing inexplicit courtesies

But reaching our clandestine truths in each other's hands.

My hands trembled knowing I held there

All I had dreamt of and recited endless refrains about.

It was holding your heart I realised

I’d never wash the stains of your blood

Because there I fell prey to the depths of love,

And the epitome of addiction.

Your eyes told me secrets and mine exposed my own,

How unsheltered eyes are,

It is almost dangerous.

The portals to the soul is unprotected,

But in your eyes I would throw my body into the most engulfing fires of your life And burn until nothing remains of me,

Just to engage in your soul as wholly as humanly possible.

How intimate it is to be cradled so gently by something as dangerous as a drug. How can my body not yearn the rush of the touch when the touch has been taken away. No rush in the veins

No pounding in the heart

Is it really worth it to be drug free?

Wrong for me?

But, my gosh, you taste better than the sweetest sugars

And the ripest fruits fit for Dionysus' wine.

So it’s barely a wonder when they found me with berry-stained teeth With wine dripping past my lips and down my chin.

People always judge an addict until they become one, And then how the cower at the feet of the addicts

who still breathe and blink.

How they denature and dissect the improper quality of the life In which an addict possesses,

Until their hair and teeth fall like the corners of their lips When not puckered against a bottle or tightly shut when inhaling a line. Love is a consistant desire

And since I am an addict I shall force it through my collapsed veins And pump it through my decaying, unsupple heart.

Bad for me?

But, my, you're all too right for me.

Don't let me be drug free.

I don’t care about addiction,

Just stay here loving me.

Inject me with such a needle

That will penetrate like a kiss

And bide my lonely nights

With such radical risks

That fill a lonely void

Within a troubled heart

And taught my fractured soul

The beauty of the nature in art

And in my sleepless state

With all my restlessness

You smoothed out my nerves so to feel

The reverse of soullessness.

And hands like that of a potter

Remould my cracked and damaged clay

By never taking their hands away

Like the cupping of hands

Around the cheeks of my face

Which really always did smile up at you

But how were you to know that

Moulding the clay

Was the easiest part,

Smoothening malleable, soft mud is elementary

But how were you to know that

The beautiful, glossy pot you left alone

Would shatter into more broken pieces

Then the raw clay ever would have.

My drug,

My addiction

My intimidating brown eyes

Have dilated pupils twice their size

And drink the universe unsparingly

To drought

In search for the purpose of love

And the answers to doubt,

Through a double-sided kaleidoscope.

With young hands which flail to hinder her fall Which catch none and fall heavily to the floor.

And once she recovers

She licks the floor

For the remnants of the night before

The drops of liquor

Or lashes of stashes

Or snow or blow

Or gummies which have tainted innocence,

And stares drowsily in the mirror searching for penitence And finding none but smeared eyes and fervent reverence, Such an intimate form of dependence,

On a substance to fill her gaping mouth

And satisfy her drugless drought.

To her incapacitating drug which others deemed irrelevant. To replenish her throbbing mind

The aching of her drug-free nights

Because between her parents and her peers She covered her ringing ears

For she loves her drugs more deeply

Then all five senses could feel.

She never thought that taking drugs

Could feel so surreal,

For her drug resuscitated her ability to heal.

And addiction is so vague and understated

For the love she felt for the drug

Was not scientific but a love elated.

People called her crazy

Some called her mad

Some called her pathetic

Many called her sad

She still slipped under the fingers

Of a drug that lets her linger

Under the covers of its skin

From such a comforting stranger.

Beneath the flesh they'd laugh

And have to cover their mouths

Whisper about the things they couldn't live without, The longing of wants, the mutual needs And skin can so protect but skin also bleeds A threshold so strong

But only a temporarily steed

So when the skin bleeds

And all is released,

And drug’s blood is soaked in her hair

And spilling off her everywhere

The police lights are so blinding to her Too much, too soon to bear

To be so abrasively departed

From the drug which restarted

Her irregular beating

Life-depleting,

Jaggered, defective

Heart.

And the skin which warmed the calloused Throat of abuse and streaming fire,

And replaced it with the sweetest desires, Of starting a life and a life to live higher. Higher than oceans, skies, and seas,

Separating hearts and reality

Showing me one in a million

But what was so special about me?

What a sight I am, so gleeful

With dried lips encrusted with stray powder

Which twirls sparsely away from the sodden tongue it lands on, And a quivering throat strung in giddiness

Of such a rush

A throat which craves the contact of your palm

Lips which bear the desire of your thumb.

Pearls of sweat beads

Only highlight the glow of the face that adores you.

When did childhood candy

Turn to timeless drugs

When did sugar rush

Turn to The Rush?

My face is smeared with the powder which twirls beneath spotlights And the room tilts as alarmingly

But I wait for your hands to stabilise me,

When instead others grope me

And another grabs you.

I fight, and pull, push and shove

scream ,cry, twist

Wish, crash, run,

Gasp, throw,

Beg.

Don't let me be drug free.

Feed me the bottle again

Tilt it up the way you did

When it was too heavy for my drunken hands

So intoxicated by your presence it

Felt so incredible, the rush,

Even water could make me weak,

And pour my thoughts out my mouth

To confide in you again,

My drug of security and residence.

You listen like the ocean

And let me speak my trauma as easy as

Smoke filters through my teeth and nose.

Mummering my turn? Such an undeniable coax which

Unfroze my blood and allowed vulnerability to overspill, Gushing with trust

From a long-deceased container,

Like an extinct volcano

Erupting after years.

Despite being so dormant.

It can spill til destruction,

Weeping lava

And hailing molten

Such a loving from of caressing addiction

I’d love to explode beneath you.

Tell me to tell you I love you

I say it everyday

Through my blurriest eyes I’d never run astray

True to the white lined path I’ll stay anyway

“I love you” I scream, “I love you” I say.

“My drug, my love, don’t leave me again”

Ravage me,

Undo what I’ve been so tightly wound to be

I’ll only loosen my threads for you,

See my eyes swirling with suitor

Like chocolate paint dipped in water

Echoes of pigment rippling seductively

Looking up at you with wasted, washed love,

Drawn and heavy, ready to accept your love

An unhollow desire.

I reach my unfolded hand and touch my fingertips to your chest, To look up, to meet your eyes with mirroring electrifying ardor And your pulse beneath my palm,

All my love I held here, my drug,

All my addictions fulfilled.

So can't you believe my dread

The day my hands reached to touch you

And lapsed through your body

For you were no longer there.

Your body passed through my fingertips

Like waves which crash over rocks

With the illusion that they pass through them,

Trying to hold it felt like trying to grasp

Fistfuls of sand with holes in your palms.

No, no, no, there’s been a mistake

Frantically words escape their jail

I still need you

I run to my drug, gasping for breath

Lungfuls of exasperation and desperation

Fuel me for the last time

Rush and overrule me

I collapsed at its feet

I look up but it looks up too,

Our eyes no longer latch

With the enthralling connection as it had

When it couldn’t refrain from staring

So it had to stand behind me

As not to arouse suspicion.

My swirling brain saw every sunrise and sunset all in tandem The sky broke opened my heart

And the salt of the ocean crystalised around my ankles Claiming me as part of the sea

Just as my drug claimed part of me,

Opposite west

Escape with my life, take me so long as im yours Take me, my drug, take me for life

Or take me in jest

Just tell me you’re mine.

The irony of begging my drug to take me instead. Isn’t that representation of my addiction unbled.

I drag my fingers across unclean tables

And suck the same dry off of yours,

The powder that I could not afford,

Yet somehow chose my mouth to breed

And my teeth to sleep

And rub my gums for pleasure,

Capsise my tongue for relief.

Just tell me not my sweet drug

Kisses the palettes of my replacements

The prettier girls with fresher veins than me,

Because, oh, how possessive I am for a drug

That was never even mine to begin with.

For I can’t prevent drugs from being dealt into

Anybodies hand,

Nor can I beg my drug to stay.

Maybe I am too desperate to obtain the love of you

Maybe I am too addicted and need to much of you

Maybe that's exactly what drugs are meant to do

And if my drug could feel

Would it feel me too

If my drug could take

Would it take me too

If my drug could sleep

Would it sleep with me

If its heart could beat

Would it beat alongside mine?

Don’t you understand the structure of my bones

They are restructured to balance the weight of loving you, And how my muscles dip beneath the crushing desire to pull you closer Even as you slip away

Each tendon yearns

And everyone organ screams your name

Every part of me is afflicted with you,

Don't let me be drug free.

Mornings are the hardest

Tears have hardened from the previous nights pours

And made the skin of my cheeks taut

And the sun washed out my drawn face and exposed

The rough, sleepless edges of my dark eyes.

Alcohol and sleep fill the scent of my room

And before I acknowledge my conscience I reach to consume Only to find my fingers slip through the space you’d always be And my heart remembers you are no more

The pain is inexplicable

It is the daunting kind that sets you back every ounce of progress You assume you made the night before, being drug-free. Because with every more second I am awake I remember How much I hate being drug-free.

And every memory of my drug drifts through the air

Dancing romantically with the smoke which fills my lungs

Above my head and in the sunlight

Like a wedding dance.

And all I can do is watch

Knowing my drug will never dance that way with me.

I force myself off the bed

And the compulsion, like a swarm in my skull,

Dictates my very liveliness

Tugs my lips and heart strings

Like a disposable violin

At a circus.

Flirts with the ducts in my eyes

With relapsing mixed emotions and tempting the tears

And often blending my brain with disillusionment

Making gradients of reality and memories

So I can barely stand conscious in peace of mind

That my drug is or is not waiting

That I am or am not forced to rehabilitate.

Addiction makes you relive every fantasy in the worlds they will never be real. Dreams, subconscious, memories.

Believable enough to entice you

And painful enough to break you all over again,

Twice as awful, thrice as hard,

To live knowing your limerent powder is being enjoyed by another, My sugarless blood

The very sugar I lack

Sweetens another,

My drug-free body,

Not a body I want,

But my drug

Pleasuring my replacement with the rush I need.

I know I could have kept you

If only you kept me the way you said you would

When I was an addict.

Maybe then I would've never had to know drug-free.

Don't you recall our first night,

I was just shy of 17, and you had so much experience and we danced til 3am. In the morning I deemed it all a dream

Til I found traces of you on my pillowcases And streaked beside the golden in my hair. And like silver glitter on my fingertips. How I held it close and slept in it. How I played with the dust,

Without any fear I'd ever lose it. How could I hold it all in my hands then, And now watch it seep through inable Unmoving fingers.

Like sand bending through an hourglass Like losing unclotting blood

Like a slowly fading life.

Didn't you feel it too?

Even just a buzz

I know you are the drug

But didn't you feel a little rush?

So tell me, my drug,

And tell me honestly,

Was it really worth it to be drug free? -Vana

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, hosted by Hashtag Kalakar, celebrates diverse voices in poetry and creative writing. This prestigious platform provides participants with the opportunity to showcase their literary talents, fostering a global community of writers who share a passion for storytelling and poetic expression.

We extend our gratitude to Nirvana Soogreem for her captivating short story "Drug Free" submitted to the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her exploration of love and addiction offers readers a thought-provoking journey, and we look forward to seeing more of her exceptional work in the future.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.