I have no idea who reads this shit anymore. But I know that, of late, there’s been a hell of a lot more readers than there used to be.
So many I took down the blog stats. They’ve been making me head swirl.
So many I wonder what the fuck this even means, and whether or not anyone of particular interest stands to gain something from this shit. You know, the usual wandering suitcase interweb crap.
Me, I think you’re all strangers. If you’re not, be good enough not to lurk. Be proud enough to send me a love letter or some sort of new-fangled ouiji board sign. There are other ways, too. There are hand massages and sandwiches and weekends trips to Staten Island.
You know what I do when I feel so stressed out, pitiful and depressed that I think the world is going to swallow me up like a greedy biblical whale? I read a book, especially this book, and I draw a hot bath. I mix a cold martini, and then another, and pour both concoctions on a plastic cup so not to break along the edge of the porcelain bath tub. And then I read, and I soak, and I sip, and I bite into olives and leave their pits in the sink under a thick layer of face-wash foam. I make sure to take an anti-anxiety pill, first, usually something mild like ativan. I lie. And I lie there soaking for an hour at least. I let the ghost of that novel I once birthed drain from me like sweat. I wash my hair and my fingers rub and stab at my scalp for hours and hours.
Here comes the rest of the book: The woman lies in bed, her leg jutting out though the rest of her body spoons around a man who has left. There is always something else, she tells herself, yet she continues to curl. It is only that leg that reaches out to fill the emptiness, the space, the void. There are no other arms. There is no morning kiss, after all. So she spreads out entirely, letting that one leg trail over toward the edge of the mattress, a manifest destiny of the old maid typecast.
It is the rest, afterall, after fall. It is her rest.
