Kills the Time

 "I thought people were keeping an eye on you?" 

"Yeah, they were," I say. "People get comfortable. They relax."

We're sitting on a curb near a monument in the center of town. It's night and there are people all around us. The streets are closed off and there is life humming, buzzing, burning along. Vendors in tents line the streets and music bursts out from any number of stores and restaurants and bars. The sounds clash in my brain and the sea of people is putting me on edge but I'm on my seventh drink and I'm doing okay with it all.

I have paintings displayed in a bar downtown and they had chosen tonight for the opening. Charlie wanted to come support and I needed to get out of the house. Out of my head. We met at the bar, looked for wherever my work was, casually judged the others, and eventualy decided it was too loud and went out into the street.

"So... how is that going then?" she asks.

I hold up my beer. "About this well."

"I've never been on a bender."

"You should try it," I say. "Doesn't help at all and it ruins fuckin' everything."

"It seems like it."

"Kills the time, though. Keeps me occupied. Keeps everything down. Mostly."

She offers a vague frown. "How long has it been?"

"About two weeks. Tonight's the last night. I told myself that before I came here. After this, it's time to come back down."

"Good. Last thing you need is to make any more stupid decisions."

I know what she means. I know what she actually means.

I inhale. "Yeah... I really wish I hadn't done that."

We're both staring off at the people. The droves and tide of it all. Two women walk past us. One tall with blonde hair, the other short with brown. They barely register.

"She's so fucking perfect," Charlie says.

"Who?"

"The tall girl that just walked by. Whenever I see her I want to talk to her but... I can't. Get all... I don't know."

"I didn't even really see her. I believe you though." Sip at my beer. Some fruity and bitter thing. 7.1%. My hands are sticky from it spilling all over while I had tried to shove my way through the crowd. I am having trouble focusing on anything else.

"What about you?" she asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Have you talked to ------?"

I fill her in as much as I think I should. From my perspective only. It's really no one else's business but mine. "I haven't seen her here though. I was a little nervous I would."

I tell her something else. From my perspective only.

"Then why the hell aren't you texting her right now? Say that to her."

"No. I can't." I tell her something else. 

From my perspective only. 

"I'm sorry," she says. "Someday, maybe."

"Maybe."

Finish my beer. It's getting late. "You sticking around?"

"No. I have to get home soon. Walk with me to my car?"

"Sure," I say, and stand. Toss my cup in a garbage can and we walk through the crowd toward her car. "Thanks for hanging out with me tonight."

"Of course. I want to support my friends." 

We part ways, say good night, and I remember the bar still has my card. I walk back to the bar, order one more beer, close out, sit and drink it in a small corner and begin the walk back to my car. I get to a bench and remember what my plan for the night was. I remember what the plan actually was and I remembered what I'm supposed to do in these moments.

I call a friend of mine and wipe the tears out of my fucking eyes. Again.

In a Shoebox, Hidden

A scratch-off in a frame. A black beaded bracelet. A server's ticket. A scratch-away picture of a buddha. A brown corded necklace with a large stone. A post-it note with a 3 scribbled on it. All in a small pile on my bed. All moving into a shoebox.

These are all just things, I think. They don't mean anything.

If I say it enough, I'll believe it.

I guess.

The kettle is humming away on the stove. Gurgling and steaming. I imagine it will be screaming before long. I close the shoebox, slide it under the bed, exhale, and head into the kitchen.

Ants in my bones. A sort of ache to be out in the world, living and growing. Smiling and building. I never know where to start. That's always been my problem. Once I know the path, everything is easy for me. Once I understand where to begin, there isn't any stopping me. I just never know where to begin. I can never see that first step. So I end up pacing. Ancy. Wasting days and hours. Forcing myself into familiar habits. Writing, painting, music. Things I have caught myself doing without realizing it. Things I know so well I am nearly convinced they are more me than the body I'm trapped in.

Pour the water into a mug. Teabag in. Bring it out to the desk and stare at the cursor on the screen. Just a pile of unpublished writing about people who don't like to be written about. Great gaps in my timeline where only they existed. Memories and hopes and joy and loss. All my experience and all I hold close to me, and all hidden away from the world. Someday maybe someone will find it. Read it. After I'm gone, whenever that is. But while I have control, no one ever will. There is a melancholy to it, but in some corner of this cavernous skull I do like the idea that there are these flashes of beauty in my life that only I (we) know about.

I begin a new post. 

Stare at the cursor.

"All you have to do is write one true sentence," Hemingway once said. "Write the truest sentence you know."

I type it out. 

It says too much. I delete it.

Stare at the cursor. My mind is wrapped around it, the now deleted sentence, and everything it said. I've written enough about that. The pile of unpublished writing.

Stare at the cursor. 

Type more truths. Delete them. 

I can't seem to think about anything else.

Okay, I think. Maybe what I'm feeling isn't the only true thing. What am I doing? Is there truth in that?

There is. 

There is and it still says quite a lot, but I type it;

"A scratch-off in a frame..."

Half & Half, Joy & Rot

I'm with Anthony and Kris. Sitting on a hillside in Albany watching KRS-One. It's evening and I have an eight dollar plastic cup of wine in my hand and sunglasses on my face. I haven't seen Anthony or Kris in nearly a year. The music was loud and we're there to see the show, so catching up and small talk would come later. I text Michael between songs.

"Are you at KRS-One?"

He doesn't answer and I scan the crowd for you, like I scan every crowd, but you aren't there. I'd have seen you immediately. I'd have felt you. I'm half relieved and half disappointed. 

My phone buzzes and distracts me. Michael. "Yesss."

I don't respond. Still stuck on the idea of 'what if I run into you' and 'what would I say' and 'should I even say anything'. I'd be afraid it'd ruin your day, so I imagine I'd try to stay out of sight and leave quickly. I scroll through our last conversation. Read it all. Again. Disappointed. Heartbroken. Keep trying to let go, but I can't. I've never been able to with you. 

Maybe someday my heart will get the point. Maybe someday I'll accept it.

The song ends. The show ends. The wine is gone and the three of us stand.

"Do you want to hang?" Anthony asks me.

"Of course, yeah. I usually stay in Troy though, so I don't really know any places around here."

"My cousin gave me some suggestions," Kris says. "The Old English? Do you know that place?"

"No," I say. "But let's just do that."

We all agree to get to our illegally parked cars and meet there. I text Michael back.

"Going to the Old English if yr sticking around."

I've been making a determined effort since getting out of the hospital to be near friends. Especially Michael. Neither one of us were in good places and we lost some friends a few months back, so we had decided that we need to spend more time together. It was the right call.

Walking back to my car I continue to watch the crowd for you. In case. I know it's fantasy. I know it's stupid. I can't help it.

The Old English is exactly what you are picturing. We are loud. Laughing. Yelling. Good to be around friends. They eat, but I don't. I have a cabernet and we talk about music and Plattsburgh. Touring and the old days. I can't help but find the sadness in all of it. In everything. I'm joyful in this moment but I can feel the rot climbing through me. We stay for an hour or so and leave. Anthony and Kris are headed north to stay with William and Frances before they make the drive back to Plattsburgh, and Michael, Paul, and I decide to go into Troy to a bar we know. It's a Thursday and we think we will be able to talk.

I get to Troy first and walk the block. Scanning the people. Relieved, disappointed. You're like a ghost. Always with me.

We have drinks. We share secrets. We laugh more and talk about the same old shit. We reminisce about the people we lost, people we love, dreams we've let die, and Insane Clown Posse. Joy and rot. It doesn't ever leave me. The rot always slithering inside of me. Growing and contracting. Fight the sadness and void as much as I can. Do all the tricks. Do everything right. It never leaves. 

Before I leave I order a pizza to be delivered to my house. I glance at the bathroom where a few months back you were sending me half-heart hand gestures and selfies and I cram that down inside me. 

Hug my friends. Say good night to the bartender, and leave.

At home I put a movie on. The pizza arrives and I begin to write and eat. I finish and I walk in the bathroom and take the small amount of pills I'm allowed to have. Twenty seven in total. I don't know if it's enough, but we'll see. I wash them all down with kratom. I don't set the coffee maker up because I won't need it. I write one general letter and I post it to my blog. I'm sorry. Goodbye. 

I turn the lights out, strip down, and climb into bed. I got to see my friends and feel love. Good enough. I close my eyes.

Four hours later I'm jolted awake. I'm balled up in pain and sweating and then I'm throwing up violently in the dark. I'm just not allowed to die.

Finish throwing up, delete the letter, and head back to bed. Half relieved, half disappointed.

Soup is Good Food

 The house smelled like wet cigarette butts.

Pacing around my apartment. It was dark outside and I was reminded of forcing Donald to eat cigarette butts out of a cup of brown water twenty years ago. He did. I did. We were more than vaguely drunk.

Walked into my kitchen and the plastic handle of the teapot was on fire.

Bare palm knocked the fucking thing onto the floor, crashing and rolling, spinning and spilling boiling water everywhere and I turned off the burner. 

"Fuck!" Wiped my burnt hand against my leg. Looked around for a towel and saw nothing.

"Fuck!" Hurt like hell.

Forgot why I was even boiling water. Ran my hand under the tap. Lukewarm water and then cold. The handle was still burning. Poured a cup of water, knelt beside it and slowly poured the water over it until the flames were out. Smelled awful. Like wet cigarette butts.

I had been considering crime. I had been considering robbing banks. They say you get away with your first one most of the time if you can keep your mouth shut. I could. All I needed was a couple grand. Buy myself more time. Find myself driving around town looking at bank branches. Picturing my hands as I slide the note across the counter. The look in their eyes. The weight of the silence. The pounding of my heart and the rent paid in full.

My mother had called the night before and I had joked about it. Crime. I wondered if I was testing the waters. If I would actually consider it seriously. 

Depends on how desperate I get, I thought.

I had been applying for work for a few months. No dice. 

...how desperate I get.

My hand still stung and I picked the kettle up off the floor now that some time had passed. I wasn't going to rob any fucking banks. My heart would stop before I even got to the counter. But, just like everything else, it was a nice fantasy. 

Set the kettle back on the stove. 

A pain in my stomach. 

Remembered that I had been planning to make a Cup of Soup. 

Nothing

It's three or four in the morning. I'm standing in the dark neighborhood, looking down the hill at the town below. 

Wrapping myself in the silence.

Headlights sometimes. Nothing mostly. Peace from where I am. 

Exist only as a shadow crossing the light from the streetlamps. A shadow crossing bedroom walls while they all sleep. I am boundless and free and only I inhabit this place. Soft and slow, my footsteps over the blacktop. 

In this place I think about you and it is okay.

In this place I walk next to myself. Rest my head on my shoulder. Whisper, feel. Inhale. Exhale. And the heat of it all is gone. The heat of the day. The heat of the moments. The heat of remembering. Gone.

I walk the blocks. You never know I am there. A ghost. 

The rabbits come out of the bushes and stop when they see me and dart back into the safety of the underbrush. 

I'll be your friend.

I'll be your friend.

If you'll let me.

The air is cool on my face and on my body. I didn't bring a jacket. I sit in the middle of 15th and People's. The road is vaguely wet. There are no cars. No cares. Traffic lights above me and their pattern over and over. Close my eyes. Feel the world around me. Listen. Breathe. To be nothing. To fade from here. Not violent. Not sudden. But to gradually dissipate like the fog of the morning. To integrate into the atmosphere and I could visit you while you smoke outside. While you laugh with your family. While you sit in your car and wonder where I've gone. To gradually dissipate and become the air you breathe and move through. 

If you'll let me.

I should walk home. I should slide soft into my bed. Pull the sheet over me. Dream. I should, and I will soon, but for now

Nothing.

Just a moment

to be nothing