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A sudden intense feeling of dissatisfaction, like when all the cute girls get off at the same bus stop and you’re left in your seat trying to remember their faces and imagine their phone numbers.

496-9848.

736-2839.

238-4830.

   It’s not enough. You look out the window to distract yourself. You see a sign advertising your college. It says: “Affordable.” You already want another cigarette. You just had one. You’re trying to quit. Your mom’s calling now.

476-1753.

  She wants to know what your wearing and if it’s clean or not. She wants to know if you’re coming home on Sunday and if you’ve called Dr. Ranowitz yet. Your medication’s running out. You know what happens when you don’t take it. You can’t do your homework.

“I love you”

“I love you too”

  Cigarettes do their job when you realize your inability to formulate a single meaningful thought. They do their job when you don’t understand a line of the poem you’re reading, but know it’s better than anything you’ll ever write. They do their job when your ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend “legitimately likes your band, dude.”

   And you don’t know where you’re going. You got on the bus for the sole purpose of leaving. The apartment you live in has become too familiar. Too many rituals. Your neighbors have sex every single night at 11:30, and every single night at 11:30 you sit in your living room waiting for them to finish and start the shower. You can hear all of this. Every thrust and moan. Not tonight though. Tonight you got on the bus and went south.   

  A man next to you reads a little green bible, which reminds you of the fact that you haven’t been to church in five months. The man turns to you and hands you a pamphlet with pictures of dismembered fetuses. He tells you to have a “blessed day”.

 You decide to get off the bus.

  A Promotional Red Bull car drives by slowly. Inside it, a girl with big sunglasses is nodding her head and singing along to a pop song. You wave at her and she rolls down her window. You try to be funny. You ask if she has any “samples”. She doesn’t laugh, but she throws you a can. You catch it and put it in your breast pocket. You salute her. She nods uneasily.

 As you open the can, you wonder if you will meet this person in the next life. That thought stays for a second before it is replaced with the bigger question of whether there is a next life. This is how your mind works. Small to big.

  An airplane passes overhead. It is a commercial plane. It doesn’t look real. It looks too small to be real. You’re not even sure if you believe there are people in it. Even though you know better, you begin to entertain the idea that planes are holograms and that passengers are actually teleported from point A to point B. You then remember one of the times you were on an airplane and admit the contradictions. Finally, you acknowledge the fact that airplanes do exist and intern realize what you just spent the last three blocks contemplating. You shiver and make a barfing noise. That’s a habit you have when you remember or recognize something regrettable.

   So, you are going nowhere. You need to make a plan. You’ve got to have a plan. You sit down on a bench and take out a notebook. You’ve had this notebook for years. It’s filled with plans. You’ve made a plan about every single day. You look at some of them. One for a trip to New York City, another for a novel about giants, another for building a canoe. You shiver and make three barfing noises. Pen to paper.

 

What am I going to do tonight/forever?