She told me that I was a lion, slumbering in my cave, leaving the remains of carcasses around me. She told me to get my shit together. But I told her that my shit was together. It was all there, lying around me. She told me that I needed structure. What is structure, I said? Organization, she said. You need organization. What do I need organization for? I have everything I need right here. If I need a pen. I know where it is. Under the table. Under the pile of shit. Just because it's not in a drawer or in a cup or in my desk doesn't mean that I have no organization. I know where everything is. So I told her to fuck off.

I'm terrified of mirrors. I avoid them at all cost. It pains me to go to the bathroom in my apartment because afterward, you have to wash your hands. And that mirror is there. So I just look down and avoid it. I've thought about tearing it off the wall, but it's attached to the medicine cabinet, and I'm sure I'd lose my security deposit if I did. Often, when I'm really afraid of what I might see in the mirror, I just don't wash my hands. I don't like to see what you look like. I wish no one else could see me either. But I guess they have to. Unless they were blind. I decided to only be friends with blind people. I met one once. We talked for a while about art. But he didn't know what you were talking about. So I told him we should break it off. I don't see what you mean, he said.

She told me that I smelled bad. She said I should take a shower. I said, My shower is just as dirty as I am. She told me to clean it. But it's just going to get dirty again, I said. What's wrong with being dirty? I pledge allegiance. To the dirt. Of the United States of Dirt. And to the dirt. For which it stands. One dirt. Under Dirt. Indivisible. With dirt. And dirt. For all. Worms live in dirt. Are you a worm? What's the difference between worms and humans? We serve the same functions. Do worms have jobs? Probably not. But they work to be alive. Then they die. Just like humans. I like dirt. But you hate it here.

She told me that she had to go away for a while. Where to? I asked. Paris. For what? I just need to get away. For how long? A while. So she grabbed a suitcase from my closet and began stuffing it with the clothes that she left in my apartment. Sweaters, T-shirts, bras, panties, socks. What do you need that for? I asked as she stuffed the lingerie that you had bought her for Valentine's Day in with the rest of her clothes. It was blue with frills around the bust line and a little bow on the back of the thong panties. You never know, she said. She went into the bathroom, and I followed her. She put on lipstick and blush and eye liner and mascara with the aid of the mirror. What do you need all that makeup for? I asked. I just do, she said. She snatched up her toothbrush and my toothpaste and threw it in her suitcase along with the Tampax, facewash, and hand lotion that she stored under the sink. She left twenty minutes later. She wrote me from time to time. But nothing much more than I'M STILL HERE. I'M STILL ALIVE. BE BACK EVENTUALLY.

I used to be afraid of the dark. I thought terrifying monsters would attack me. I don't know why, but I think it might be because I watched Friday the 13th when I was six years old. I was born on Friday the 13th. So you thought the movie might be interesting. But it turned out that it was just some guy named Jason decapitating teenagers who were trying to get away and have sex in cabins in the woods. Why would Jason do that to people? And how did he survive being drowned and stabbed and shot and electrocuted? Must have been some fucked up shit. Why did anyone watch it? Did they believe in it?

You were assigned to read four books over the summer of my sophomore year of high school. Pride and Prejudice, Tale of Two Cities, Wuthering Heights, and Gulliver's Travels. I didn't read any of them. I thought they were stupid. Who cares about stupid people's relationship problems, family problems, traveling to made-up lands? What do these novels attribute to society? And what does anything attribute to society? Society is weak. Just like me.

She used to tell me daily that she loved me. She stopped saying that, though, a few months before she left. I think she still does, even if she won't admit it. I was feeling ill one Sunday morning, and she asked me what she could do to help. I said to just sit next to me. Can I get you something to eat? she asked. No, I'm not hungry. Medicine? Pepto Bismol? No, I said. Just be with me. Well can't I do anything? Rub my back, I said. So she started rubbing my back, and when I told her that she could stop, she put her arm around me and fell asleep. While she was sleeping, she started to shake. What's wrong? I asked. But she was still asleep. Are you ok? And she started to speak. I've, she said. You know. I've. I've always. What is it? I asked. I've always. And then she rolled over and didn't say another word.

I've always wanted to kill someone. You think I will someday, given the right opportunity. I wonder when the best opportunity will present itself to me. I hope that it will involve saving someone, but I'm sure it'll just be in drunken anger. Someone will just piss me off, and then they'll be gone. Just like a bug. Why do people kill bugs? Just because they hate them? This doesn't make sense to me. Because as I've seen it, eventually someone will hate you, and they will think of you as a bug. And then, then you're gone. Squashed. Splat. Dead. If it's so easy for you to kill a fly, why is it so hard to kill a person? What's the difference?

She called me from her hostel. She told me that she had been out drinking all night with some girls and boys she had met. I was furious. I was jealous. Why would you go out drinking with other guys? Why do you care? she asked. She had her drunk attitude that I knew so well. She said she was having a good time. Have you been physical with anyone? I asked. No, there's no one here I want. I thought that that could be a good sign. I thought that she might be implying that I was what she wanted. Do you miss me? I asked. Sometimes.

I used to get high, smoke weed. But it made me too depressed. I would think about what I was doing to myself. Filling my brain with chemicals that distort my perception of reality. What an escape, they say. I don't see it. I see it as a result of the lack of ability to cope with life. If you need to cope with life, then why wouldn't you just kill yourself? I've considered it. And I'd probably do it. But there's a person or three that would probably feel bad if I died. And I live with them. But if they were removed from life, I don't know what I'd live for. Would I just go on in life for the sake of living? What would I turn out to be? A drone? Living on, making a living, mating, creating more and more and more. Who needs more? You need less. Less would be great. Less is more, they say. Well then I'm just shit out of luck. What's the point?

Later that night, the night she told me she had been out drinking, I laughed my face off. I had been so angry with her. So jealous. So furious that she was out with other people. That she was enjoying herself without me. Enjoying herself with other guys. And I looked around my friend Jill's apartment, beer in hand. Bottles scattered all around the room. My friends James and Nick and Alice and Cecilia and Jill. All sitting on couches. Here I am sitting around drinking with friends and other girls. I laughed so hard that everyone got scared and left.

My room smells like roast beef, like my mother used to make in a crock-pot. A crock-pot, what is that? Does anyone know? I attribute the smell to the smoked cigarettes that I've rolled. I roll them carelessly, spilling tobacco all over the floor. But I have a vacuum. I could use it. I probably will eventually. But I just don't see the point. You might as well live in filth. I don't see the difference. Everywhere I look I see beer bottles. Some empty, some half-full. I wish I could drink those half full bottles. But it would taste bad. I decided that beer is food. If you leave it out, it goes bad. But then I thought about milk. Milk goes bad if you leave it out. So then I thought that beer was milk. But that doesn't make sense. Nor does anything else.

She didn't write us for three weeks.

I decided not to have any friends. I couldn't communicate with them. Either they were too smart, or I was too smart. We couldn't relate. I'd be talking about Greek Myths, and they'd be talking about light fixtures. Or vice versa. A friend of mine told me that the Earth was a living being. He also thought that plants could feel pain when they were stepped on or snapped in half. Imagine how the grass feels when you mow the lawn! I told him that be thought too much. He told me that I was ignorant. I met one guy that I liked talking to once. He was a writer. He told me that the world would be meaningless if it weren't for writers. How else would the history of the world be documented? It wouldn't, I said. And that's fine with me.

I was lying in the grass in the rain when I decided that nothing mattered. No words mattered. No people mattered. You didn't even matter to me. As far as I was concerned, you didn't even exist. I didn't want to move because I didn't care. But I knew that I had to. So I sat up. There were people everywhere. All holding patterned umbrellas. Blues and pinks and red whites and blues. I didn't know where they were going, but unlike me, they all had places to go. I stoop up. Checked my cigarettes for pockets. Pockets for cigarettes. But I had smoked them all while I was in the grass. A fly flew through the air past me, and I snatched it out of the air and crushed it in my fist. What does it have to live for? Just to fly around and around and around and fuck and fuck and fuck and make more and more fucking flies that fly around and around. I don't need any more flies. And they don't need you. Except for the fact that you create garbage. They thrive on that shit. I, too, live in filth.

I wish I could create something meaningful. Like a person. But how would I care for this person? I can't keep a job. I can't pay the rent. How could I feed a child? They could eat the food that I rummage through the garbage to find. It's still good. I found a burger once from McDonald's. It tasted pretty good. Except you had to wipe the maggots and slugs off of it. I don't know why I didn't eat the maggots. They're probably full of protein. At least, that's what I hear. Or maybe that was just beetles. Are maggots beetles? Someone must know. People go to school for that shit.

I thought that I wouldn't be able to go on without her. But I was managing okay on my own. I still thought of her all the time. And little things would remind you of her. And sure I cried a lot and spent a lot of time in my bed with the lights off listening to Air Supply and Henry Nilsson. But I still got on with my life. You still had other thoughts besides of her.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. That's my favorite word, and I like to say it as much as I can. It's such a delicious word. I like to say it when I can. Sing it even. Eat it if I could. I bet it tastes better than chicken. How did "It tastes like chicken" become such a popular phrase? As if everything tasted like chicken. But what does chicken taste like? Can anyone describe that taste? Meaty? Chickeny? It tastes like chicken. I guess it has to. That's what it is. Unless it's not.

I was lying in my bed another Sunday morning. I always felt sick on Sundays. Always. So I started thinking about why I would feel sick. Because I ate something bad? No. Because you didn't eat anything? Maybe. Because I thought I was a waste of space? Could be. Because she was gone? Perhaps. Because I had nothing in life to look forward to? Getting closer. Because you started referring to yourself in the second person and you just realized it now and you don't even know how long we've been doing it? Bingo.

So you went into the bathroom. And looked in the mirror. What a scene. You threw up. But I missed the toilet. And it landed on the tile floor. I should clean that up. But you don't care. I stepped in it. And dragged your sneaker across the floor, smearing the vomit. Making art. It looks so pretty. So many colors. Green and brown and some orange, red whites and blues. The clock chimed three a.m., but it was only two fifty-five. At least by my watch. Maybe that's why you're late all the time. So I decided that you had to pee. And peed, missing the toilet for the most part because the line of piss split into two streams, both of which not wanting to enter the toilet where it would be flushed away. It always happens to you. But I don't care. I'm a worm. A worm that kills flies. That kills humans. That kills. I guess I'm a murderer after all.

I went into your room and collapsed on my bed. I put my pillow over your face and held it there firmly. I fought with myself. Stop it. That hurts. You're hurting me. We can't breathe. You're killing us. We're not a fly. You're a fly. And everything went black. I thought I was dying. I thought I was dead. I thought I was done with life. But then I woke up. And it was the next day. And the birds were chirping. And the men were working on the building across the street. Fixing the aesthetics. Making it pretty. I wish I had repairmen for my own structure. But no one seems to think that I need any restoration. Or it could be that no one notices, So I walked out of my room, and I went downstairs, and I got into my car, and I drove as fast as I could to the cigarette store. I guess they have more than cigarettes, but that's all that I cared about. And I got there, and I demanded that they give me cigarettes even though I didn't have any money. And they told me to leave and that they would call the police if I refused. So I told them to call the police. But I left anyway. There was nothing left for me to do.

So I gave her a call on the pay phone outside. I called collect. And she picked up anyway. She told me that I shouldn't be calling her. I told her that I tried to kill myself. And she told me that I was lying. I told her that I wasn't. I wouldn't lie about that. Then why aren't you dead? she asked. Because things didn't go as I planned. I woke up. She told me she would come home. That she would make everything better as long as I didn't try to kill myself again. So I got in my car and drove to her house and went into her apartment and climbed in her bed. And I waited there for her. For her to come home and tell me that everything would be ok. And she would stroke my head and rub my back and kiss me gently on the lips and place her arms on my waist. And she would tell me that everything would be ok. She would assure me. And I would believe her.