Next

I laid down to sleep and couldn't. I don't sleep much. A few questions kept me up: Why does losing something or someone hurt more than never having it? Why do we fear death more than the eons that passed before we were shit out of a womb? Why does the thought of an ex putting their hand on the small of someone else's back drive us insane?

Many were here before us, and more will be after us. Yet the thought wedges itself between our teeth. And no matchbook or toothpick is sharp enough to fish it out. It's in our mouth and in there good.

Once we get a taste, there's no going back. Tim's dad, Glen, once told me, "We're all heroin addicts. Some of us just don't know it yet." Love, life, and heroin all go in the same pile for me. Once we taste it, there's no going back.

I'm afraid of dying. I wish I weren't. I sincerely wish that I believed in God. I don't. And it's a sore subject for me. Maybe I'd be sleeping right now instead of sitting up alone in my apartment banging on my keyboard like its done me some great injustice. Like a rat at a feeder bar hoping that if I press these keys enough times, what I want will drop out of a little chute.

The world will look very much like it did before I got here. And every woman I've held in the cradle between my neck and chest will find another nook. And friends get married and move away. And bands break up. And plays end their run. And presidents only get two terms. And we all have to get up the next morning.

I've been trying to outlast the night. The backs of my eyelids show me endless loops of movies I don't want to see. And late every night, I cave. I concede to the relentless night.

We all seek the bastion of specialness, the moment we fool ourselves into thinking the world couldn't replace us. We great actors, husbands, guitar players, poets, and brothers are too valuable to be replaced. The world couldn't possibly keep spinning without our wit, guile, charm, kisses, and love. But it does.

And it is intolerable.