Vegetable

Opened the curtains. The February daylight, stark and whispering "bitter cold, bitter cold". The heat in my apartment would slowly fade through the old and thin windows and instead of any joy or comfort I would only occassionally glance outside and long for motivation or ambition or desire for fucking anything, finding nothing. But, daylight regardless. I did it for you. Like most things.

"You've got to open the curtains," you and a dozen other people have said to me over the years.

"You've got to get out of bed."

"You've got to get dressed."

"You've go to

"You've got to

On and on.

So I did.

I'm showered. I'm dressed. I picked up a small amount of the clutter slowly metastasizing my apartment. I paced around. I opened a bottle of white wine that a friend had brought me and I have no money and no gas and no paint and no patience and no food. I take the bottle and a glass to the couch and I'm hoping it's enough wine to put me to sleep or fight back the ever present, ever screaming notion that the beam in my living room above my couch is strong enough to hold my weight. I made my peace a long time ago but you

had said

"You're going to turn yourself into a vegetable. Your luck is going to run out."

"What do you mean?" Sitting on your couch, with a small laugh, I asked.

"You think it's funny, but it's true. I'm being serious. Is that what you want?"

"At least I wouldn't have to worry about money."

"It's not a fucking joke. How many times have you tried?"

"Jesus Christ, I don't know. It doesn't matter. It never works."

"That's my point. How many more times are you going to be able to wake up? Do you know how many overdose attempts end up just totally destroying their brains? How many of them lose body function and are trapped in there, aware and unable to live at all? It's not a fucking joke. You've tried, what like, three or four times since I've known you?"

"I don't know. Sure."

"'I don't know, sure.' You see how flippant you are about it? Even if you don't care about what that would do to the people you say you love, what that would do to me, you really don't care that it could lead to you being in a much worse spot? That you'd be a fucking vegetable? That possibility is horrifying to me. It would destroy me to see you like that. It would be such a fucking waste and, honestly, I'm kind of pissed at you for even thinking about it."

"I've tried other ways. None of them work. I can't die. I'm sure of it."

"Then stop fucking trying. Try to go live. Open your fucking curtains once in a while."

I didn't say anything for a minute and then I asked if you wanted popcorn. 

So I opened the curtains today.