Kay,

I'm so sorry for your loss, and I wish you the best of luck in helping your other friend.

As for this piece, I'm not exactly sure what kind of critique you're looking for.  However, I do like how you are combining both your experience and deja vu in this piece.  I think it makes it that much more powerful.  It also makes a very nice contrast as deja vu is usually kind of a light hearted matter, where as your story is very sad, scary and powerful.  I would also suggesting finding specific words that would add to the image or the power it holds and then work them into the piece.

Writing like this is good to releive some of the pain and stress you are feeling in any situation.  I do it every once and a while too.  It's good for the heart and mind.

 I've just realized that this could be fiction.  Is it?  I'm embarassed. haha

Kay,

This is clearly written. I love the rhythm you found with this piece. It is terribly sad to have lost a one friend to this affliction, and then to think you may be losing another--it is just awful. I am sorry for your loss and for the difficutly of sorting things out with your second friend in similar circumstances. Though the piece closes very well with the word you most didn't want to hear...if you do want to add to this piece and work it out as more of a memior...it would be ideal to add a bit more. Just to sum up what happened with your friend, or with you regarding the underlying issues of 1. losing friends-- and 2. the drain on these (and other) beautiful friends that drugs have become.

Again, it is a clear and fluid piece.

Louise

 Hi Kay

     I'm sorry for your loss also, but I knew right away this was not fiction.  It seems to be written as a prose poem.  I don't know if that's what you intended.  But it has good meter to it and a lot of repetitions of certain words and phrases like a poem.   Some of your sentences in the beginning are not really sentences, but if this was written in poem form, it would work. 

    It is beautifully written and tells  a sad story.  I especially liked the way you ended it, with such hopelessness and dread.  This piece brings out a lot of emotions not only for you, but for the reader also.  You did great job on this piece and good luck with it in the future.

Cathy

 *** As with the happy stories there must be sad....I'm sorry for your loss, I know what you must be feeling. I lost a true love and I know the feeling of unbelievable sadness. You wrote this with such feeling that the reader can only feel what you must be feeling. I have decided that my own self therapy is to put the person in a novel to make them immortal, they can be anyone you desire and they can exist anyway you want them to. I know its silly but it worked for me! You have an ability and desire to write its plain to see....I would like to see what you come up with! I look forward to more of your work....write on!***

 Kay

Very emotional - emotion in this piece makes it.  You start half-way into thought, which is great for planting me into the action and your feelings.

The repetition does a nice job relaying the distress, the upset and feeling of helplessness.  You have a gift for the poetic.  Agree w/ Louise, the rhythm is regular and simple.

Poignant.  Keep writing with your heart.  It works.  If you're anything like me, it's cathartic and you will never get better prose.  You've hit on a universal sadness - and done it brilliantly.

Keep writing,

mike