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 ^{(it's beta!)}

One day I had to drive a fifteen year old about thirty miles to buy the morning after pill for her friend; another day I had to drive a friend of mine to the doctor's because his parents wouldn't take him; both times I stood outside the respective clinic's smoking and considering calling Mikal except Mikal had better things to do and I never feel right interrupting.

It's not that I have a problem with either situation, really, I like to see them resolved, yet it seems something I would experience in the last years of college not now; I seem forced into this false maturity and where, you know, I would have a safe place to retire to later in life maybe, a place to call my own, now I'm driving home to my little brothers arguing and my father asleep on the couch and my mom working through menopause without letting anyone know except for those days when the temperature somehow hits sixty two in the dead of summer.

Mostly just dead summer, I want it to be summer, because I can't stand these kids asking me to do things; I just want to lie in a garage somewhere and wait for everything to fall apart and maybe Mikal would lie with me with her head on my heart except she's got so much to do I think I just hold her back. I'm needy and I'm not the best boyfriend and I got stuck in these things, these stupid little things, and I can't get them out of my head yet I can't seem discontent driving up just past the border to Planned Parenthood with my neighbor riding shotgun knowing she's fucking some guy and this could easily be for her and I guess I'm going to end up actually buying it because at least I look older than eighteen with the worry lines and tired eyes; her perked up tits and flat stomach and smile is nothing known to those beaten by the world or so my boss told me at work.

I've got a hack and I watched coffee and cigarettes and started mixing peroxide and water, I gargle, I do not swallow, except Mikal calls and she never calls so I almost drank this big mix and jesus christ I could have died and I'm yelling at the phone, jesus darling I just got almost fucked up honey you startled me I'm just yelling at this point not mean just scared for my life and she starts going off about how I always say I'm so goddamn lonely why can't I just be happy she's calling I say I am happy I just fucking almost lost my life I should be scared Mikal jesus I'm sorry but man I'm scared and she just mutters you're always scared anyway you want to get dinner and I want to tell her yes but I think I better throw up first and she asks what and I say nothing I just I'll meet you at Chili's in an hour and she says okay.

So I don't know if I'm going to go or not all we do is fight and I do love her in my broken sort of way, I love holding her and those nights when we're too wounded to say anything it's just nice to have her lie in my arms for a while, but I don't know I want her to be happy and she just isn't with me and I'm too attached to let her know. She does know, and I don't know why she stays, but I appreciative it, and I guess I will go tonight.

I guess I was driving that girl and she was talking about her friend and the major thing was not that she was pregnant but that the guy was black, and I mean, shit, it's a white area mostly, and it's all conservative, and she had lied to the guy about being on the pill cause she was taking E and there is no good side here because the dude was fucked up as well, and so the girl wants to get rid of the kid because her parents would make her orphan a black kid as opposed to just regretting the way they raised their daughter, and I was thinking, I just don't care. Everyone in this world seems to forget that we're just alive for a short time and that time should not be filled with misery and suffering or joy and bliss it should be filled with good friends and good family and good comfort and I said that to the girl and she said that's pretty fucked if you aren't living for anything but comfort and I said, whatever, at least I'm not fucking a druggie and can't even be honest about it and she started crying and I got pretty silent until we got to the clinic.

I guess I didn't mind her crying I was just pissed she couldn't tell me and I was wasting my gas on a lie and I'm smoking and getting bad looks as I let her go in and get her shit and I'm sitting on the hood of my Camaro leaving an ass dent as she walks out with washed mascara and I apologize and she hugs me for a long time and I guess things like this happen more than you'd ever want them to.

I'm not a bad guy, or I don't think I am, I just want to relax mostly without thinking about things. If I could, I would do nothing. It's not a mind altering viewpoint, really, it's been discussed in most male favored movies of the nineteen nineties; an escapist fantasy propagated by the corporate world we've willingly immersed ourselves in, yet we seem to only find release in release. There is appreciation of the sinecure, a simple job with no true responsibilities but still with a sense of purpose; realistically, having an office to leave at any given point for eight hours a day will keep you in it, working to better the company given a sense of purpose rather than a sense of duty.

Mikal says I'm being unrealistic and I should just be happy we're going to college near each other and that my family has money and that I can pursue my dreams with less strings attached, yet so many of my dreams are tied up in romanticized visions of the down trodden brought on by Kerouac and Bukowski and Didion and other people who shape the minds of young, upper middle class whites, and so I turn to smoking to connect with a death I would like truly to know; a death imposed upon myself willingly for base pleasures and in the process changing the very chemistry of my mind, and I find a great beauty in that.

Some mornings I just don't go to school until after I eat breakfast and my father writes me little notes to get me out of any responsibility; I sometimes drive my brothers to their school so they can seem independent except they really hate me. And my mom is just working now, since I guess I've always been hers and I'm leaving soon and there's nothing much else for her to do but find meaning in her work and I guess that's pretty wonderful to really mean something.

Mikal sits with me on the bench outside of Chili's with her head on my shoulder and my jacket around her, and I feel so naked with only a tee shirt. I don't mind and I guess I'm going to start wearing a tank top or A-shirt or something just because I keep gaining weight and it isn't pretty and it should all stay still. I don't know, it's not a giant deal, I would like my coat but I like it better around her.

There are nights when all I want to do is die, and nights when I want to leave, and nights when I want to take long drives; none of it matters, my mother snores across the hall, and my father flicks on the bathroom fan downstairs. This world is not what I want it to be, but the least I can do is exist in relative harmony with it for as long as I'm able. Mikal says that's defeatist, but I don't mind it. She kisses my cheek and thanks me for coming, and I apologize for earlier, and she says its okay and we kiss on the lips, and I let some tension drop.

Time has been slipping lately; I might be graduating in a week, or maybe it's a month. I can't seem to remember and most of the nights I live I just kind of fall into place through phone calls and text messages and trying to find someone to just talk to for a few minutes in a restaurant. I'm worried about my own health, mentally, physically; I think I'm going to see a doctor soon. I don't know. I haven't been sleeping except I have but I'm never rested, I feel as if I've just stared at a dark wall for eight hours and forgot it.

I don't know. I just don't. Maybe I'm thirty and I've fallen, maybe I'm just my father or maybe I'm some clingy figment of Mikal's imagination. I think it doesn't much matter, and Mikal says she loves me in a whispered voice near my ear, and I remember staring at the wall.