everybody tells me it gets better but nobody tells me when. i sweep the floor of scattered constellation cat litter and internally cringe at the writing of the phrase “scattered constellation cat litter,” but i keep it in the draft because my brain feels like it’s sludge and i do not trust myself to be clever. i kiss jasper’s face. i pat maynard’s butt. “feed us more tuna,” they demand, and i plug my ears and say la la la.
everybody tells me it gets better but nobody tells me how. i look at the growing list of blocked phone numbers. i drink more kratom than is good for me and swear off drinking for good. the kava bar is playing harry potter. the people all around me are hugging. from christofer: “i’ve never been in a place before where everyone has so clearly been to rehab before.” also from christofer: “there’s so much hugging in here it makes me want to blow my brains out.”
everybody tells me it gets better but everybody telling me that wasn’t raped as a child. oh well, lament the chorus. get over it, sing the greek gods. i try to get over it. i try to make something out of nothing. i try to keep the house clean even when i want to kill myself.
lately i’ve been thinking about killing myself. lately i’ve been thinking about what i want from this life. lately i’ve been trying to calculate what it is i need to change in order to not end it all. i make a grocery list of the kind of world i might actually want to live in: the end of climate collapse. the end of fascism. the end of cruelty. the end of suffering. the end of ghosting. the end of callousness. the end of white people having dreads going tiktok viral for songs about embodying love. the end of tiktok. the end of social media. the end of planned obsolescence. the end of therapy speak. the end of white queers weaponizing personal identity to get out of personal responsibility. the end of car culture. the end of suburbia. the end of evangelicalism. the end of industrial slaughterhouses. the end of endless cruelty. the end of needless suffering. sorry, the architect of the universe tells me when i go to visit him. endless suffering machine broke.
so it’s not working? i ask him, hopeful. he shakes his head. no no. he adjusts in his seat, his feet up on his desk. the machine broken in the on position. we can’t turn it off. i shrug and turn around to leave. wait! he calls out. it helps us a lot if you leave a yelp review. i pull up yelp on my phone as i walk to the train. four stars, even though he couldn’t help me. okay, five stars, because he was hot and i need to leave a review so he has a way to contact me. i start to leave a review and drop my phone in a puddle.
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