Tired of my species. Tired of humans. Tired of the being and the feeling and everything that goes along with it.
I wish to be something else—or nothing else, if that is what is in store for me. I would find happiness as a cactus or a grapefruit. I would sooner be a dolphin or a blade of grass.
Sick to death of having flesh and hair and bones. I want to be supernatural. I want to be a breeze.
My twenty-four years have brought me here. I can’t bear to double my age. I’ll still be stupid—still human. And worst of all I’ll still be here on this good-for-nothing wet rock.
Wet rock.
Inside I find only rust and sad parts. It’s all gone to rot. I am not a vessel for the holy spirit, but rather a glass jar filled with spider eggs and broken harmonicas. I am a piece of gum chewed beyond its flavor.
I feel stretched. I feel weak. I can’t keep doing this.
Open me up. Take what you will. You may have it all. I’ve already been stripped of everything that matters—already been torn to pieces by love-marauders and blameless goddesses. I have been plundered and shaken and left to sit in this crater with my hands tied behind my back and my eyes sewn shut. I can hear locusts.
Too tired. Too tired to do anything. Too sad. Too dumb.
If you ask for me I will answer you. I will come to you. I will open my mouth and scream until the eyes water and the hands tremble and the legs bend.
Have you ever fallen down so hard that everything shakes?
I can hear a bayonet being fed into a wood chipper. Both are sick with rust. Everything smells like sulfur. Something hurts.
Don’t be foolish. Be brilliant.
• • •
Sit on the leather couch next to where the bands play and sip your stupid beer. Drink until your face is red with alcohol. Spill it on the armrest when no one is looking, and feel like a fool.
Get up. Find a reason to make any of this worth it. Stop acting like a child. Always sulking. Always messy.
No more games. No more fun.
Felt-tip pen on flesh. A clock. Tick tock.
Messy messy.
Wake up!