Sam Pink - Person

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.

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.

I don’t though.

I don’t because I know I will sit there and pick up every piece out from the carpet.

Just leave.

Leave her apartment.

Ok.

I pour the water out in the sink and then I finish dressing and leave.

Outside I feel very stupid.

Like the air is effecting a bad chemical reaction with my skin and face.

Everything looks unfamiliar.

There’s nowhere to be.

I walk to a park a few blocks away and sit on a bench with my hands over my ears.

It’s cold out.

In some ways it is the best moment of my life.

In some ways I am always telling the truth.

I leave her apartment and go to the park nearby.

I sit on the swingset at the park until I’m really cold.

Eventually, a homeless man walks up to the metal garbage can by the swingset.

He looks through the garbage can.

Then he takes out some old chicken legs and eats them.

I watch him eat the garbage.

I want to say, “Pass that shit dude.”

But I feel too shy.

He comes up to me and searches both his pockets, holding a chicken leg in his mouth.

He takes out two plastic dogs.

“Want a dog,” he says carefully, lips around the chicken leg.

“How much man.”

“Whatever you give me,” he says.

I give him almost a dollar in change and I take a small plastic dog.

I secretly name the dog, “Mega-Dog.”

The homeless man takes the chicken leg out of his mouth with his pointer finger and his thumb, like a cigar.

He looks at the other plastic dog in his hand.

I notice.

“I’m breaking up a marriage,” I say.

He laughs.

“You awful,” he says.

He keeps laughing and he goes back to the garbage, takes out more things.

I see the words “good job” scroll through my headhole in neon letters.

And I feel like the mayor of a small room with no one else in it.

I leave the park and walk.

And I decide I don’t like waking up.

And I decide I want to walk in a straight line until I am very far away, but I also know every straight line walked is a commitment and every straight line is many other straight lines and they intersect and sometimes they overlap completely.

I haven’t slept in two days so I feel tired now, lying on my sleeping bag.

My feet are very cold but I am ok.

In the long transition to sleep I entertain a complex paranoia about a group of people who will be assigned to review each action I have taken throughout my life.

And once dead, I’ll meet them in council.

There will be a group assigned to review my “thank-yous said” to “those not said.”

There will be a group assigned to review every face I’ve made just after waking up.

There will be a group assigned to review how I treated people who asked me for help.

And a group assigned to review the times I felt bad but didn’t tell anyone.

A group assigned to review the times I deliberately threw crayons into the small fan my third grade bus driver positioned by his face.

And a group assigned to review bugs I needlessly stepped on.

A group for this nap I’m taking too.

And in the paranoia, I see myself getting dressed-up to go before them and answer questions.

I’m very nervous before each council but I try to be brave.

“This nap you took—” someone says.

“Yes?”

A mean-looking woman in the middle of the panel, she clasps her hands together and she says, “Tell us about this nap.”

When I wake up, one of my legs is numb.

And I remain awake in my sleeping bag, staring at the blinds until the black behind gets more blue, then lighter blue, then white.

Sometimes I definitely feel a sense of accomplishment but it’s never after accomplishing something.

My roommate and I are driving home after buying paper towels for the apartment.

A slapping sound happens against the bottom of the car and I look over my shoulder through the back windshield.