Feces and fees

"Shit happens, that's why we call it life."


Words meant to reassure me, words meant to normalize a fuck-up.


A mistake that puts me in the passenger seat next to an Uber driver named Antonio, he's friendly and we talk about the lack of applications for a BA in math in the real world, a conversation that almost distracts me from the fact that we are on our way to the impound to pick up my car.


This morning I woke up to find that where I parked my car last night was now a freshly paved road with a distinct lack of car. The slight panic I feel seems to complete my metamorphosis into a true Angeleno.


My first call is to my fairy god mother. A friend of a friend who pretty much adopted me when I first arrived in LA.


Her instructions lead me to Antonio and both of us to the impound. I dwell on her words of comfort. “Shit happens, that's why we call it life.”


It amuses me how literal that phrase is, a thing is defined as Alive because it absorbs and excretes.


I poop therefore I am.


And right now I seem to have pooped a large fee to recover my car. I part ways with Antonio, joking that if he hears gunshots he should drive away. He laughs nervously and speeds off... Maybe that wasn't an appropriate joke....






Everyone at the impound is pretty friendly and professional. I leave with my baby and a bottle of water offered in good will. I think of the phrase


“hindsight is a bitch.”

 yet I realize she isn't a bitch, she's a dominatrix, Leather clad in regret and wielding a whip of everything we could have done better. One who we crawl back to because we feel like we deserve to be punished. I have been an irresponsible naughty boy!


It's been a shitty day.


I feel so alive.

Orpheus has logged out

She hits me like a lightning bolt.

A quick pop-up flashes on the bottom of my screen accompanied by bubbly sound common among all messenger programs.

It might as well have sounded like thunder.

Its a message from her,

She says “ im ok”

she's answering a long dormant message I left her a few weeks back, maybe its a moment of weakness or pain or pride, Or basically the exact same reason that I caved in and wrote to her in the first place.

Still reeling from the shock-wave all I can manage is a small

“I’m happy to hear that”

she asks a question that would take me hours to answer.

“and u?”

some part of my brain that isn't still vibrating tells my fingers to write

“im ok” back to her

She proceeds to tell me she's passed all her exams and she's moving on to her last year for her bachelors degree at university.

“I have to go now, bye” she types.

out of the millions of things I wanted to say I manage to compress and compact it all into neat little-

“im proud of you, bye”

she's gone.

The little green light indicating that she was online.

Somewhere,

sitting in-front of a computer and talking to me turns into a little yellow

“away”

Leaving a chasm in her wake that sucks in everything like the punctured wall of a submarine

I feel like a ghost just ran through me.

And it takes effort not to follow that ghost,

not to charge after it into Hades wielding a lyre. Playing Cerberus a lullaby, rowing the river styx and charming the pants off of the big man himself, begging him to let me take it back, take back the ghost of the person I was when I was with her.

And yet all I can do is look back, all I can do is look back and doom myself over and over again as I send that ghost falling back into the pit because looking forward means I'll never see it again.

So I play this twisted version of soul yoyo.

Flinging my dead relationship up and down. Not letting it rest in peace but be trapped on a bungie-chord of self pity and longing.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

A sweetness that has become a drug, taken again and again to fend of the harsh reality of growing up.

fancies of flight

I walk home after a long day of smiling and joking with people who are on a first name basis with me because I wear a name tag.

 The night breeze is cold and pleasant compared to what felt like being microwaved earlier that afternoon. 

My feet ache and I wish I could just take off and fly home, soar through the night like some minimum wage earning owl.

 The darkness and privacy of the long walk  spark a slight madness in me. 

suddenly I wonder if it's only because I know I can't fly that's stopping me from doing so. Maybe it's just a matter of baby steps.

 I walk under a tree and see a branch that's just out of reach.

 I know that if I jump high enough I'll reach it.

 So I do

. And then under the next tree I look for a branch that's slightly higher then that. Each time I leap and gain just enough height to touch the next dangling leaf, allowing the limit of how high I know I can jump to grow. Every time just a little bit higher. 

But reality is the most vivid dream of all and the ache in my feet is now a throbbing. 

I snap out of my optimistic madness and resign myself to the earth, allowing myself once again to be oppressed by the truth of the world rather then the truth of my soul.

 My destination isn't my shared room where the only things that belong to me are my sheets and laundry,

 but my car,

 a messy thing with cracks in the windshield, rust on the frame and a dent in the trunk the will never let it truly close completely, a beast that screams and whines if I pull the wheel too far to each side, a car that is a deeper reflection of myself then any mirror could be,

 it's also where I left my cigarettes. 

I finally reach where she's parked outside the apartment.

 I climb into the passenger's side because the window on the driver's side won't open. 

I light a cigarette and switch on the radio. Someone is reading poetry.

 I'm filled with a moment of pure melancholic masturbatory satisfaction. I catch a glimpse of myself in the door mirror.

 I look like douch bag. 

Worms and spiders.

It's a party.
 It's loud and exciting but I can't find who I'm looking for,
 I go upstairs. 
Someone is using the shower so I sneak by into the bedroom. 
The love of my life is pretending to be asleep there. As I open the door I can see her with her eyes closed.
 She's trying not to smile as I silently crawl into the bed with her, I lean in close. 

She makes a sound like a distressed goat.

 I wake up. 
My roommate has sleep apnea. 
I knew that last month when I moved in. What I didn't know is that sleep apnea apparently means that my roommate will randomly start moaning like he's losing his anal virginity. 
I glare at him for awhile, hating him for interrupting my dream about my ex. I look at the clock and see that it's 6:30 in the morning. I decide On a whim that I should go jogging.
 I tell myself 20 minutes of jogging should be good.
 What I thought was going to be 20 minutes turned out to be 2 minutes of jogging and 18 minutes of my body telling me to go fuck myself.
 I walk along, spitting and hating myself for being out of shape when I spot an enormous spider web on a gate.
 I stop to admire it. Thinking that perhaps witnessing this natural beauty is worth the pain in my knees and my shortness of breath. 
This thought dies quickly as I'm one of those unfortunate people who mistakes bitterness and sarcasm for intelligence.
 I'm almost back at the apartment. I decide to push myself a little, I figure that a touch of self respect would be worth the pain as I try to jog all the way back.
 I pass another jogger. I try to smile at her, hoping for some sense of camaraderie,
 hey friend you look like you have your shit together!
 I too am one with my shit together!
 She makes no eye contact as we jog passed each other, I guess she's to busy having her life together to notice me. I'm about 4 minutes from the house when I stop running to catch my breath again. As I walk up a steep hill I spot a worm crawling across the pavement I bend down to pick it up but it spasms and wriggles. I assure it I mean it no harm and pick up and put it in the dirt under a rose bush. I wonder if the dirt there might be too hard so I try to dig it up a bit. The worm ignores the little ditch I made for it and crawls under a little rose leaf. I get up and continue towards the apartment. Feeling a sense of camaraderie.