John is thousands of miles away but I feel him.
He doesn’t call me.
Nobody calls me.
John calls me sometimes.
I try not to lie.
I just lied.
John loves me.
I take two Hydroxycut and sit on the red futon. I smoke and blow my smoke into the center and buzz. Sounds of Earth below reach me rolling like fog through the windows. I’m alone. I am always alone.
I’m disgusting.
Hunger burns and rises in the chest.
Up the ladder.
Tomorrow, I will lead a test on starlight.
1. Stars are born in clouds of gas and
a. Thighs
b. Arms
c. Tummy
d. Ass
Stars are born of gravitational collapse.
Stay away from the vodka, John.
One more.
Two less.
A hundred.
More.
A dense, hot core.
~ ~ ~
The total energy radiated by a star per unit time is its luminosity.
The more massive a star, the more luminous it is.
The brighter it burns.
High-mass stars rapidly exhaust their core supplies of energy.
And burn out.
I feel that this is the end of suffering.
I feel that I will be extinguished.
~ ~ ~
This is the end of indecision. Of two desires orbiting the empty space of why.
I will finally disappear. Be final.
Desire requires two bodies: This and that.
The final exam.
Evaluation.
John says: What does it mean to be primitive in the city? John thinks he’s primitive and he thinks I’m primitive.
I’m indifferent, I think. I don’t think much anymore.
I think I don’t feel deeply for John.
I think John needs me. I feel this without feeling it.
That he needs me reminds me that I’m here, worth something.
I know I feel hungry.
Distant.
I feel dizzy when I stand.
I’m not living in a tree, John. No.
If you say so.
That sounds perfect.
I don’t know what I believe.
You don’t believe these things you’re saying, either. You’ve just filled yourself with them.
You have filled yourself with me.
You don’t even know me.
You don’t even know me.
You don’t grow your own food.
You don’t grow anything but your gut.
I didn’t mean that. I’m tired.
I’m lonely.
I’m hungry.
I’m sorry.
Self-hating.
Justifiably afraid.
Don’t be angry.
Don’t leave me. I’m alone.
I should be left alone.
I love you.
I feel this now as a kind of falling.
I just miss you, I say.
I need you, too.
(We pass each other and keep turning.)
John, lighten up. It’s a joke. I said I’m sorry.
How committed are you, really? I doubt your commitment.
To what?
To the cause.
I do believe in causation. I believe in control. I control this, if nothing else.
I control myself. You see it. It is visible in my absence.
And on paper.
In my performance.
You got straight A’s? You do so much. Too much, really.
But those people online aren’t your comrades.
If you can’t touch them you can’t know them. I know you’re lonely.
I don’t like to be touched. I’m sorry.
Don’t remind me that I’m here.
I feel one thing: afraid.
Guilty. Vile.
It’s just that I miss you.
I’m sure that’s it. I am angry at myself.
I’m just angry.
I am justifiably angry.
Fine, then I’m afraid.
I call him periodically throughout the night. I can’t stargaze here. Otherwise, I’d be out.
There is too much light on Long Island.
He’s up all night when he doesn’t take his pills.
I’m sick. I know. I’m sick, too, John.
I’m sick of this. I’m sick of you suffering. I’m sick of suffering.
I’m fading.
We know each other’s sickness. It keeps us circling.
I ask him questions about it but he doesn’t tell me much.
I also think he lies.
I lie.
How can I know? I can know very little.
I know he lies.
I don’t know.
I don’t know what he sees. He doesn’t ask me about myself anymore.
I don’t think he wants to know.
What to say? I am empty inside on purpose.
I have a purpose. I do.
It is making myself a star.
I’m serious.
I don’t have a sense of humor.
I think it’s enough that I’m morbidly interested.
It must seem like concern. It does concern me.
He takes his pills for fun. They’re his. He needs them. He says that he doesn’t.
What would your doctor think? Do you tell him?
Of course not. I take them, but not for fun.
Whatever.
We’re different. We’re also the same.
John doesn’t know about my pills.
Once, he rear-ended someone on the Kennedy Expressway and spent three days in the hospital.
I couldn’t be there. Should I have told him then? There is never a good time.
I didn’t ask him, either.