A Lake in a Strong Wind

It kind of looks like I'm bleeding down my tie from a slit in my neck. I fucking love this shirt. This shirt is perfect. This tie really ties these articles of clothing together, so to speak. Excellent. Fuck. My head hurts. I'm completely still, staring into a mirror in an apartment somewhere that a dude I know lives in, and I'm drunk and I'm trying not to ask myself who I am. I don't.

I don't.

I don't. 'Who are you?' Yes.

Then I do, I guess. I'm tired. I don't want to sleep here. I don't want to go home. I want to run for a little while under the dark blue crystal skies and by the river, and feel connected to anyone or anything and call my grandmother from a payphone and make plans to play cards in a small kitchen at an ancient table with sunshine everywhere and coffee and I would be sobre that day. Yes.

'Who are you?'

What does that mean, really? I'm certainly not trying to be a pseudo-existentialist. I just want to know. Genuinely and truly. Certainly and madly. Sorrowful and longingly. Et cetera. I'm so tired. I hope no one knocks.

'Who are you?'

Someone knocks. I say nothing. I say nothing. He or she knocks again. I think it's a he based on the forcefulness of the knocking, but I can't be sure, of course. Yes. He knocks again and says,

'Man, who's in there?

'Who's in there.

'Hello?! Hey,'

'Hey man, it's me, man, I'm just being sick, man.' This was the best lie to tell. 'Sorry, dude.'

'Oh, shit, man, that's cool, I just need in there. So...'

'Yeh, man, it's cool, just give me a sec.'

I eventually get out of there and try to look nauseaus but I can't figure out how to do that so it's not possibly working. I walk into the livingroom and there's three people in there and two of them appear to be sleeping and the other one is just really fucked up. He's talking quietly and being jittery and awful and looks at me intensely and it puts me on edge and I'm very, very drunk and I want to go home.

'What's goin on, man?' I say, unconvincingly.

'Huh? Huh, man? Like...Listen man, I gotta go to the hospital.'

'What man, whaddaya mean, man, yer just high.'

'I'm serious man, I gotta go to the hospital and Anne and Adam are way too fucked up, and fucking Brittany got right pissed at Adam and left and I gotta fucking go to the fucking...the...the fucking hospital, man.'

I'm very seriously pissed about this situation and I don't know who I am but I know these people even less. I'm so fucking tired. I'm drunk and I don't want to drive but if I call 911 I'll have to talk to cops, and there's no fucking way I'm doing that. I really don't know this Adam dude but he's in high school, I think, so I don't know why he's here. Why are any high school kids here? Why am I here, actually? I'm fucking twenty-one. I'm too old for this shit. I realize I just referred to being too old at twenty-one. How sad. My back hurts. I get the keys from Alex for his car.

I get into the car after throwing the fucked up teens into the backseat and head to the hospital and it sucks. I drop them off and get the fuck outta there and I go home with this other persons car and slowly drag my feet up the long staircase and to my door. I unlock three locks, stumble in, turn around and relock all of them. I turn on a lamp and sit on my couch, take off my shoes, and yawn, spinning. Spinning. I get up and get water and walk around my apartment muttering to myself about something and sipping water, trying not to spin. It's always like this and I want to get drunk tomorrow. I stand in the mirror and try to focus on parts of my face but they all fall and crumble and blur and move into and out of each other like a lake in a strong wind played in slow motion.

'Who are you?'

Um. 'Who are you?'

Isn't that a song?