What happens?  What always happens?

    I drink.  I drink so much so quickly.  I open my throat up and consume as much as possible.  I drown myself.

    And the next few hours are blurry.  I do irreparable damage.  I wreak havoc.

    I tell my best friend he’s my enemy.  You’re my enemy, I tell him.  

We laugh about this later.  We share a chuckle.  My silly words.  

He’s still my friend.  He’s still there and he questions nothing.  

A true friend.

    But the Girl.  How I hurt the Girl.  How I surprise her by demolishing myself, and in turn demolish her.  How I let my plague infect her fragile body and feed and feed until she just stares blankly and tells me how she doesn’t know if she can handle this.  

Handle me.  

    Things are not so easy.  These days.  These faces.  I grow weary.  

Lassitude.  Lassitude is such a good word.

And what is it they say about life?  It goes on?  Is that what they say?  

Well, yes, indeed it does.  And that is the part that hurts the most.  That is the part that burns deepest and sharpest.  It goes on.  It always goes on.  This shall continue and I shall have to continue with it.

What a crude joke.  What a poor trick.  

Looks like I have no choice but to rectify my accounts.

The war wages on.

    I’m walking, and there’s a gap.

    I step into it.  I always step into it.  I know how this goes.  I know it too well.  I’ve done it time and time again.  I know what this cigarette signifies and I know as the smoke diffuses I disintegrate.  I cease.  I falter and fail.  Fall.  Fall far and hard and shatter into what will soon be swept from the ground.  Swept away.  Forgotten.  The usual.

    But when I should fall, when I always fall, when the time comes to take my plummet, to exhale the breath that stung so deep to pull in, I don’t.  I simply don’t.  And I can’t process this.  I can’t discern how it’s possible.  How I’m able to carry on.  To keep living and growing and feeling and loving.  

    I’m suspended.  Delayed.  Stretched and splayed.  

    I am more.  I feel so much more.

    And her fingers find my collar bone.  They drift ‘round my neck and down my bare spine.  Down the life I was so prepared to let go.  To part from.

    Then there’s another breath.  An expansion.  A suction of air.  Then another.  And they don’t sting so bad this time.  They progressively soothe and ease me.  They fill me with hope.

    And she pulls me to her.  She presses my chin to her cheek and her leg drapes over mine.  She kisses my forehead.  Like she did that one night.

    That one night.

    And we lay.  We lay and live and breathe.

    We breathe so many breaths.

    Ashes.  Ashes on her black shirt.  Ashes on my bedsheets.  

    Six cigarette butts sit in the ashtray my Father made.  And to think I told her she couldn’t smoke in here.

    What a joke.

    The night seems so distant now.  Much like her eyes did.  And I can’t say I feel too close to anything at the moment.  I can’t say I feel much at all.

    I make my bed in the afternoon today.  My pillow is wet with tears.

She didn’t sleep with her back to me last night.

Facts.  Lining up the facts.

Today I plan to sit in this blue swivel chair from Ikea and sweat.  I may remove my shirt.  I may remove my shorts.  I may sit here naked and bathe in the heat.  Cleanse myself of the shame I’m covered in.

Right.  An excellent Saturday.  

Good thing I woke so late.  Not too many hours to kill now. 

    Words on the page.  The blank page.  Right.

    I wake at seven to do this.  So I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my day.  So when I spend the next fifteen hours doing nothing but toss my body about my bedroom I can look back and think ‘at least I wrote.’

    At least I wrote.

    Right.

    So I meet with previous co-workers yesterday.  With friends.  I dress up in clothes I don’t normally wear and I have anxiety about how awkward I look.  I rush to my housemate’s room and spin around.  I ask if I look a fool.  She assures me otherwise, but I don’t believe her.  I charge back to my room and demolish my closet.  Eventually I settle on a familiar sweater and jeans and feel calm enough.  Though when I step outside I realize I chose wrong.  It’s much too hot.  I sweat immediately.  But I keep it on.  It’s my outfit after all.

    My friend arrives and I jump into her car.  She drives us into Baltimore.  To Sticky Rice.  I’ve never been.  We sit at a table outside, along the sidewalk, and soon enough the third joins and we’re all speaking of work, and relationships, and antidepressants, and the time moves and moves and it’s pleasant enough.

    A couple stands to smoke cigarettes and though they seemingly try to distance themselves, the wind blows in our direction and I want one.  But I don’t tell this to anyone.  I hold it in.

    When dinner is over we part with the third and hop back in the car to speak of school and jobs and life.  I feel inadequate.  So inadequate.

    What am I doing?  

    I’m writing.  And it is proving absolutely nothing.

    She stops in front of my house and we say how we’ll do it again.  Next week perhaps.  

    Then I’m alone.  I run to my room and strip bare.  Wearing nothing but my skin.  

And I still feel awkward. 

    My Father visits me in the night.  He kicks me out of the house I grew up in, for whatever reason.  There’s never really a reason.  But he screams and he yells and he chases me down the cul de sac, spewing curses and throwing household appliances.  Glasses.  Picture frames.  Pencil holders.  I’m terrified.  I cower and run.  What else can I do?

    My mother is there, as well.  She trails behind him.  Pleading.  Crying.  

    But he doesn’t hear her.  He never hears her.  The rage in his eyes is rampant.  When I glance back, I’m grateful for the occasional glare that glides across his glasses.  

I’m soon to the street and I stumble to the middle.  Hoping a car will stop, or at least hit me.  Wake me.  Free me from this beast.  But they all swerve to safety.  And my Father just nears and nears.

I’m not sure how this all ends.  It eludes me.  It always eludes me.  And perhaps that’s for the best.  Perhaps my heart might actually stop if I feel his leathery hands grasp my arm.  Or smell the beer on his breath as he reprimands me.

   
    But this is all nothing new.  This is nothing that hasn’t been ingrained into my skin.  Into my being.

    It’s good seeing him though.  It’s been quite sometime.

    Ok, so, I’m standing there.  I’m in my room and I’m standing there, and then suddenly, I’m not.  

    I’m on the carpet.  My face is level with the floor and I can see the clumps of lint and strings from clothes worn throughout the time I haven’t vacuumed.  And it’s been sometime since I’ve vacuumed.  There are numerous pebbles and dirt tracked in from shoes.  Dried petals from the sunflower that was once yellow and radiant, but is now brown and crumpled.   Even a few ants that trekked into my room and died.
   
    Died on this carpet I lay on.

    The cats soon wander in.  They’re curious.  They sniff at me and settle down on either side of my lifeless body.

    One of my housemates follows suit.  He doesn’t say much.  I’m not sure what he says.  Something like, taking a rest?  Yes, something like that.  He grabs the guitar that has been leaning against my wall, untouched for months, and takes place next to one of the cats.  He plays some tunes and then says how he’s going to fall asleep right there on the floor.

    The idea impresses itself upon me and I’m out.  Gone from this world for who-knows-how-long.  I wake and the cats are still there but my friend has disappeared.

    I look up at the window, at the bluish-grey streaks the clouds are forming across the sky.  I listen to the cars on the highway and the ice cream truck that’s circling the block.  A breeze pushes in at the blinds and they bang against the frame of the window every so often.  

    I lay like that for a while.

    Nothing else happens.  And it feels so awful for some reason.

    We wake in the night.  I’m not sure how it happens.  I’m never quite sure.

    There’s darkness.  Nothingness.  Unconsciousness.  And then I’m here.  I exist once again.  But what am I doing?

    My fingers on her skin.  Her smooth, cold skin.  They’re tracing the outline of her rib cage to her abdomen.  To her hips.  Then back up again.

    Her breath is hot on my face.  Stale.  Sharp.  Constant.

    Then we’re kissing.  Our lips meet.  Our tongues get entangled.  There are moans.  Tired moans.  Excited moans.

    What am I feeling?  

    Then it spikes.  She grabs at my shirt and pulls me on top of her.  I’m jolted into action while my brain tries to catch up.  My body begins moving and moving and suddenly we’re advancing and pushing and grinding against each other and my hands don’t know whether to wrap around her neck and pull at her hair or slide down her back and press at her rear, and my mouth is on hers but then it’s on her shoulder and then I’m biting and biting and there’s sweat on my brow when I was so very cold a few moments ago and she pushes me back only to pull me in and we repeat and repeat and repeat until it slows and slows and then finally it stops, and all that’s left is my body on hers and the rising and falling of our stomachs and chests as we lay and lay and stare at the walls wondering what the hell happened.

    What the hell happened?

    What the hell happened?

    After a minute or two she asks if she can smoke, though she knows I don’t allow it inside.  But I say yes anyway and she rises to light a candle and open the window.  Moonlight peeks in and we sit atop my bed as the room fills with clouds of grey.

    Nothing is said.  We don’t utter a word.  We simply breathe and be and be, and soon enough we’re asleep again and I wake several hours later, on my own, contemplating if any of this actually happened.

    And I still don’t know.  I’m still not sure.  As always.