In all those years I never came close to pulling it off. But I won’t stop trying—and failing massively—to the end.

Notes, 4 am
1) the past is a hallucination
2) worst possible combination: eternal life, no god

The ninth month of the pandemic brought daily, unannounced weeping, an involuntary physical impulse that felt part of some collective global balancing, almost like—
A rice cooker letting off steam?
No, that’s fucking stupid. *Coughs. But maybe.
A volcano? A cat purring?
Plunging your eczematic hands into a bubbling vat of lye?
Yes, yes, that too.

For the first time this morning all three of my crumpled kleenex reached the trash can on the other side of the bed. Maybe this will be the day things finally start to turn around.

And then, gradually, fear becomes your way of life.

Empty page: infinity.

He’d often had the feeling people were laughing at him, and finally understood why.

We thought of them as our oldest friends, and I only gradually came to understand that they had always regarded me, in some fashion I was unable to decipher, as an object of ridicule.

The solipsistic awfulness of the selfie gaze,
as perceived by its intended recipients.

What’s the problem?
No idea, really. It’s quite the mystery.
How does it manifest?
Microagressions, slamming drawers, muttering, occasionally striking oneself on the head with a crystal paperweight. The usual.
Does it leave a mark?
Only above the hairline.

She said, Hell, for me, would be eternity, with you.

Painkiller—what a beautiful word.