Five years

So five years ago I got a random phone call from a hospital in Houston Texas that turned out to be one of my favorite people calling out of the blue.

And she told me that I wasn't supposed to answer (I generally don't answer my phone unless I recognize the number, sometimes not even then if I'm busy, but I hadn't heard from her in a few months and was kind of worried). 

And she told me that she was dying.

And (of course) I didn't take her all that seriously at first, she'd always kind of had a flare for the dramatic, and there was a time when she was fairly depressed (after a pretty serious relationship of hers had dissolved) when she use to regularly say that she hated her life and she wanted to die.

And I told her that I'd prefer it if she didn't die.

And I told her that I thought the world was better with her in it.

And she told me she didn't think she'd have a choice.

And we chatted for a bit, and she never did tell me what was up.

And she wanted to know why she hadn't heard from me in a while.

And I told her I was giving her the space she had asked for.

And she said that she wished I hadn't.


And five days later my girlfriend at the time called me and asked me if I'd heard from my friend lately, and told me that she was dead.


And a little over four years later I found out how she went (apparently it was long term prescription drug abuse). 

And it'll be five years ago next week since she died at the ripe old age of 25.

And I still don't feel any better about it.

And the girlfriend is gone, and doesn't really give a shit.

And my sister can't understand why I want her to get clean off the prescription shit.

And I'm sitting here alone with my alcohol, and my over the counter cold remedies and the chronic cough that doesn't go away. 

And I desperately want to do something destructive.

And I desperately wish I were better at connecting with people, and keeping people in my life.

And sometimes, alone in the dark, I wonder if maybe I died a long time ago; and if I have just been slowly rotting from the inside all this time.

And I am sore alone.

And I need to quit being such a pussy.

Because I probably deserve it.






Fucking February.

The little sharp bits

Ground to a uniform consistency that, from a distance, resembles nothing so much as a sheet of wet/dry emery paper.

Closer inspection revealing jagged peaks, hidden dark crevasses, well worn gullies and meandering rat ways.

Hidden passages, insurmountable obstacles, echoing courtyards and well hewn stone.

Homogenized by distance

   ever expanding perspective

       and the slow hiss of times inexorable passing.

On the smell of failure.

I really need to air out my apartment.

It's one of those nights when you know that the folks who have hacked your system are the only real company you're going to have.


I figured out a couple of years back that I was probably going to die alone.

That it was, in fact, almost a guaranteed certainty that I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life alone.

But the stink of failure in this hovel is enough to choke on lately.

And the blowing rain makes it hard to open the doors without destroying the carpet and losing the deposit.



But at least I'm employed right?