“She went from yelling to sleeping faster than anyone I’ve ever seen,” he says.
“There’s still hope for people,” I say.
I pick her head up and put a pillow beneath.
“Don’t touch me,” she says, mumbling, “Or I’ll punch your skull off I’m Korean.”
I brush her hair behind her ear with my hand so her hair won’t get in her mouth as she’s threatening me.
I want to see and hear the threat.
And I sit on the couch, looking at the sleeping Korean girl.
A little bit later, my roommate and I leave and we manage to cooperatively kick another stone from the birthday girl’s apartment all the way back to our apartment.
It is amazing.
Once back, we stand just inside by the dark entryway taking our shoes off.
My roommate locks our door.
“See you tomorrow,” he says.
I say, “I know.”
Then he goes to bed and I go out the backdoor to the deck.
I stand on the deck.
It’s very cold out.
There’s a color and ringing to the sky that lets me know it is close to morning.
I look at the clouds and I feel uncomfortable.
The word “humongous” scrolls through my headhole in neon lettering.
28 (Other Version of 27)
The sun’s coming up and my roommate and I are standing on the deck.
We just returned from a birthday party for some girl he kind-of knows.
He has a cigarette and he is looking at where the sun is appearing.
“This isn’t so great,” he says.
I agree by saying nothing.
He finishes his cigarette and puts it out against the bottom of his shoe.
After a very long silence, he says, “Getting older means you have less and less fun.”
I agree by saying nothing.
I have the type of cold feeling that makes your chest muscles, like, bubbly.
Hope I don’t get sick and die.
The dream I have when I go to sleep involves me crawling through a very narrow wooden corridor for a very long time.
29
I can’t sleep.
My room is cold and for some reason I’m scared to leave.
I want to leave.
The words “death penalty” flash through my headhole in neon letters.
This will never end.
Just go to sleep.
Try again tomorrow.
You are a champion.
No, get up and get some cereal.
Yes, that will help you occupy time.
Ok I will.
Ok good.
My phone rings and it is the girl from downstairs and I don’t answer.
I don’t know what time it is or the date.
I leave my room and walk to the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal.
In my biography this will be the defining event.
This will be the part where I ascend to control.
My roommate’s box of cereal is on the counter.
I take some.
While pouring, I worry.
This is bad.
My roommate will know.
The box will feel less heavy to him.
No.
No maybe not.
No he’ll have to know.
How could he not have an approximate understanding of how much his box of cereal currently weighs.
Ok I’ll just have to put a trail out of the apartment to another apartment so he’ll think someone else took them.
Perfect.
This is perfect.
Yes.
This is good.
I will do this.
When I go to pour, dry cereal spills on the ground.
The plastic bag has been incorrectly opened.
The cereal pieces tap the ground, crushed by my attempts to dance away from them.
Ruined!
I think about just kneeling in the kitchen and screaming, “Fucking ruined!”
It seems rewarding.
Thinking also about walking outside and randomly kneeling and screaming, “I’m ruined!”
Instead, I leave the cereal on the counter and go back to bed, no longer excited about being myself.
Not excited about being fertile either.
Not really excited about some other things that have names if I really think about them too.
And I have one long word in my head that is millions of words bent together.
The giant word laughs at me whenever it wants.
And no, there is no such thing as a weekend when you don’t do anything during the week.
And yes, I want something definitive to happen.
I think tomorrow I’ll burn myself on the stove so people will feel sorry for me.
Not sure.
It seems like you just have to have an idea about where you are going and that makes things better.
My feet are too cold to sleep maybe that’s it.
And all my socks are gross — too gross for me.
This is the defining moment, when I have enough self-esteem to say yes to better socks and better hygiene.
Goddamn.
30
It’s morning and the girl on the first floor has an actual bed and I am pretending to sleep in it.
She has her arms wrapped around me, kissing my back.
I think I have acne on my back.
Goddamn I hate myself.
She’s been awake for thirty-eight minutes, trying to wake me up so I’ll have sex with her.
I know thirty-eight minutes have passed because I have been facing the alarm clock the whole time, opening my eyes randomly to check the time.
Time is the slowest when you’re pretending to sleep.
I forgot to brush my teeth last night.
My mouth tastes like there’s shit in it right now.
Whenever I push on this one molar with my tongue, it tastes like, some kind of shit-plant is sporing.
I’m really worried about how much I keep forgetting to brush my teeth.
I think it’s because my roommate buys bubble-gum flavored toothpaste.
And I always want to swallow it right away.
And every time I swallow it, my stomach really hurts.
Like really hurts bad.
Like it gets so cramped I can’t stand sometimes.
The toothpaste fizzes up right away too.
Fuck.
I don’t know why I am so upset about the toothpaste but I really really am.
The girl next to me stops kissing my back and she gets up and leaves the room.
When she is fully gone from the room I open my eyes and stare at my boots, near her broken closet door.
The words “You are a pussy” scroll through my headhole in neon letters and it makes sense.
And I sit there and eat it.
I scream in my head.
It takes forever.
Things outside the apartment building are moving and making sounds.
The sounds make me jealous of something I can’t picture.
I just want to go outside and never come back.
Go into the sounds.
I get up and put on my underwear.
In the kitchen, I look at the ground and the word “dumbass” forms in the tile.
The word “dumbass” laughs at me, and the laugh is mean-sounding, evil.
“Good morning,” she says.
“Thank you.”
She hands me a cup of water and we stand in the kitchen together and I try to think of something that is going exactly right.
There has to be something right now that is right — that exists as anyone would want it.
We make no eye contact.
Her and I.
We get along.
“Will you go to the store with me,” she says.
“What,” I say, even though I heard correctly.
We’re silent some seconds more.
Then some seconds more.
And these seconds see the deaths of other seconds, see new relationships formed by some random act of binding, see many others through the same silence.
“What,” I say, again.
I have an urge to throw my cup against the wall.