Laying here

I’m laying in bed, typing on my phone. My girlfriend is out at bars, clubs, dancing with her friends.

“I’m sorry sweetie,” I say. “I have a meeting at 7am tomorrow and I need to prepare tonight.”

“Itz okay” she says in her chirping Hispanic accent, as if she knew better. She struts around the apartment, heels clacking against the wood floors, spinning and examining her outfit. Her long lean legs fill dark blue jeans and tall heeled boots, while a sheer black crop top hugs her slender torso.

Now, I stare at the ceiling. Cars pass here and there. A beeping whirring hum builds and echos in the distance. A street cleaner.

I can’t sleep, how convenient. I think about smoking, and peek over the side of the bed where my girlfriend keeps her vape. My eyes dart to the night stand and floor as I slowly reconsider what smoking would mean for a lethargic morning meeting.

I think of better days, younger days, with instantaneous freedom, with no planning, no organizing. Perhaps check my schedule to verify when I need to show up at my restaurant job. Just beach days, party days, bar days, long days in the sun, in my Jeep, driving aimlessly, wherever the day may lead.

Now meaning is work, is trivial yearning for more of the abyss to swallow me whole as it eternally recedes, just out of reach, but consumes everything.

I am nothing.

I will look back, and these will be better days.

Working for this great company. Living with my exotic ballerina girlfriend in downtown San Francisco.

I will not remember how disconnected I felt from it all. No. I’m sure, as most memories happen to be, I will remember these days quixotically, fondly, as if it was all down hill every passing year.

Growing up always seems a bit downhill.

And to think, I thought I was progressing toward something. When in reality, I am rolling away from something: namely, life. And death waits for me at the bottom, when I eventually come to a slow roll.

I want to be my best, feel my best. But the best feels arbitrary, and impossible.

The hum penetrates my concentration. Whizzing. A machine creeps on Market St below.

I do not like typing, journaling, diary-ing on my phone. Too many mistakes, too much angst having to interrupt my flowing thoughts to correct them.

It’s 1:46am. I must sleep. My eyes grow heavy. A gentle burn. Give me more. More life. More dreams. Something for me to grab hold of, to lift me up, and elevate my sad spirit.

Girl, soul, where are you? Find me please. I need you. I wait for you. Be with me. I don’t want to be alone any longer. See me, know me. Embrace me. Penetrate my void, fill my abyss with your presence.

Girl. Hold my hand.

Goodnight.