I was sitting on the bench with a chicken sandwich (Franny Glass diet commencing: cigarette, chicken sandwich, some milk) when a tiny bird walked (walked?) up to me, awfully close, and I began speaking with it in my mind, as you do. It just kind of sat there in a way I deemed to be attentive — I regaled it with the dream from the night before I’d been turning over in my mind. The one that had eventually morphed into something worse and I woke up covered in snot, but before this — in my dream we were some forty-odd years older, there was white in his hair but not overpowering, and he looked very much the same as he does now. I told the bird that I couldn’t remember whose birthday it was, in the dream, or maybe (heavier) that it wasn’t someone I’ve met yet, someone who has yet to be born — and I couldn’t really remember what else was going on. Just that we were old sitting at a table surrounded by young people with a fiery mass of candles in the center.

In a different dream xx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xx xxx xxxxxxxxxx. It was the opposite of vulgar. Upon waking, understandably, my pupils have been very sharp. There’s a stupid kind of courage involved in knowing you’re a fool, knowing it’s a hopeless, thankless endeavor, yet keeping in reckless pursuit. Both fists clenched, one cheek against the cold glass. God knows I want it, I think. God knows I want it and knows I’m far too scared, or proud, maybe, to ask for it properly. My dignity, I think. I jolt, I stir. But I know I’d give it up in a second if —

I lost my balance on a flat, stationary surface, flailing a bit and completely losing whatever game it is they’re calling "Estonian spaghetti," and my God if I didn’t want gravity to just pull me gently all the way down, to split my chin or knock some teeth loose in hopes that some sense would squeeze on in there too. LOCK IN, I used to shout, slapping myself in the face, slippery and wet straight out the shower. Now it sounds more like a plea, like a desperate coax. Lock in, I urge myself, splayed out on a public bench, no cigarettes or alcohol or anything — hopelessly sober — lock in, and I pretend to consider it for a moment and then throw the notion away. I’m experiencing a lot of buses. A lot of time to think. It’s proven to either be the most fruitful thing in the world or will end in the most shattered —

Nah.

Or will end in the most shattered remnants —

Nah.