I wake up from a sleep. It was a deep sleep- I know this while my mind is wiped clean and my body weighs me down as though every molecule of my being is saying “stop stop stop” on repeat. I know I have to wake up: to interact with this world, respond to it, and somehow make myself a part of it. All I can fathom is what bluster that is. In those ephemeral dreams that attack me throughout the day in flash frames, I realize this world can- and will- go on without me because it was doing just that as I hibernated. Sixteen hours, twenty? Nobody noticed that maybe I have been still for too long, or maybe my body only looks well on the outside. Where is all of this coming from? Right right, the Valium may have something to do with this. I feel replenished but disturbed, tranquil but anxious, alive but deceived. But who asked me anyway?

     The surreal has happened. My brutally cynical mind wants to know better, but my phone buzzes to tell me via text there is another life form that wants to exist with me in my little plane. He wants to come over. What do I do what do I do what do I do? He comes over a lot as a friend, and I really like this one. I need to embrace this because he makes a better high. I need to get to point A to point B. Point B can’t exist without enthusiasm so audacious it makes him envy me and wonder what my secret is. I must ground myself with innate passion to bring me back to my biology-if nothing else can be trusted.

     The world is ending- and on a side note- I think I am starving. What an inconvenience because like…what is that? I shake a little and feel it up and down. Every relaxed muscle, I feel it. Every tense one, even more so. I am shivering as though fighting off a virus: maybe fighting for my life, but I still hold too much control to let go. What I am about to do will be harmless because I am still on top of things.

     I spread the coke neatly in a bowl and focus on the clicking of my Discover card dicing the pieces. The smell- almost like honey mustard- sticks to the back of my throat like no other scent can. I can already feel it. Hunger is gone, hunger never was. Hunger applies to everyone else but me. I do a line, check my phone. All over Facebook. Flinging positivity on every status and every comment because it could not be more sincere. Another line, frenetic texting the same shit to everyone on my phone.

     Friend is here! Am I not the best version of myself? Check my hair and answer the door at running pace. Everything is moving SO SLOW: even Friend frustrates me with his conversation. He talks a lot, and so do I. We never run out of conversation, and I worry our time together will terminate before we can get a fraction of it in. He is a mini universe I want to explore in every possible way.