I was in-between emotions, the night a tube sock of doom! Well probably just boredom! Also that heat! It was the hinge of my life maybe, how do I know until the end what the middle was and why not that night in Barstow the butt crack of California in a Super 8 alone reading a book of Jing Si Aphorisms found suffocating the Bible—Even the tiniest bolt must be screwed on tightly in order to perform its best it said and I needed comfort but all I got was stuck on screwed which is what I wanted but also how I felt that summer I did not move to Portland again, the summer of almosts, crab grass choking the hyssop and sage with its homely greed and who can blame crab grass for seeing something beautiful then stepping on its throat. There are so many tiny murders. It’s why handjobs were invented and I am a scientist inventing new ways to be lonely. I get bonuses every year. That year, July was pressing its mean heat to the door, listening for a heartbeat inside and I thought how wonderful to be wanted through all the meat straight to the marrow and July said yes July said whatever it is you are thinking I am thinking too so I tore off my clothes to get closer, the book of aphorisms yelling If we can reduce our desires there is nothing really worth getting upset about but I don’t like being told what to do and out of spite started wanting everything I saw— popcorn ceilings! Unremovable hangers! Stains of strangers’ failures! The room shrugged. The shag carpet yawned and swallowed my name.
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