Thoughts, Sometimes

“Are you coming back soon? Are we going to Price Chopper?” I secretly hope the answers are “no,” and “I already went with Jenny,” so I can have an excuse to be mad at him because I'm an asshole like that.
“Yeah, I got distracted by the piano in the new building. Sorry,” he texts.
Oh. Well at least I can go get more smokes now.

I remember my father in the mornings, in his underwear, cooking bacon, farting audibly, laughing, fearless.

I've done nothing all day but listen to music and read other, more successful peoples' stories online. The fan is on. My walls are covered in posters from, what?, video games? Concerts I never even went to even though I wanted and intended to? I'm going to eat cookie dough with an unwashed fork, right from the tube, secretly hoping nobody sees me. Secretly hoping to get salmonella poisoning.

Maddy won't get off work for an hour. I am finding myself more and more attached to her every day. We sit out on the sidewalk and smoke, sometimes three times a day. Sometimes more. She talks about her friends' problems and I talk about existential despair. I told her last night that I'd never been close enough to a friend to feel they were my brother or sister. The sad thing is, I'm realizing, it felt like I was saying this to a sister. Maddy, I mean. A step sister maybe. A step sister I am having sex with.

“Get fucked,” has such a better sound to it than “fuck you.” Hey buddy, get fucked. Oh yeah? Get fucked! This coffee costs how much? GET FUCKED.

Looking at my ex-ex-ex girlfriend's Facebook page. The ex from three relationships ago. I don't know the proper prefix for that. Ex cubed. She is sitting on a cement wall with another girl; I think they are in a city. There is a telephone booth in the background. A man is walking off camera at the left border. They are both smiling great big, sincerely, genuinely. I am filled with sadness, jealousy, regret, but only partially, like the herbs and whatever else settling at the bottom of a bottle of Italian dressing. Then I feel fine again for no concrete reason. I go outside and sit in the cold, next to that little plant growing out of the gutter, like usual. I decide I'm going to sleep through my classes tomorrow.

I feel I am being used to cheat on someone. I am not in a relationship. I am not having sex. But someone, somewhere, is holding hands with or kissing or fucking someone else and thinking about me. Me! This makes me feel dirty and powerful. I imagine this is how Donald Trump feels all the time. Alternatively, maybe nobody in the world, anywhere on Earth, is thinking about me in any way. This makes me feel empty. This makes me feel fake. I want to unfocus my eyes and stare at the wall and chew on my tongue until it bleeds. I want to get in the shower and turn the dial up all the way and fall asleep in my second-degree burns and never wake up.

I get goosebumps when I listen to certain songs, at the high notes or the most powerful chords, like my skin is climaxing. I am kind of embarrassed by this. When I am in the car with someone and this happens, I wonder if they notice and I wonder if they think I'm weird for being affected by music in this way. Then I pretend like I don't notice as a cold chill lights up my spine like a Tesla coil. Sometimes I hum along, under my breath, just to prolong the shivers.