Home and That

For a Cat Named Pretty Princess

Glassy eyed twenty-somethings, seventy five cent diet pepsis, newport menthol cigarettes.
Stale easter candy, five day old lemon merengue pie, pastel colored m and m's.

Someone wedged the remote control between the cushions, under their ass, and we're sure it was Jessica, and on purpose.

Green erasable pens, half assed art projects, premade frozen pizzas, the smell of feet and pork roasts, hungry diabetic possums.

I say hello to Amber.

Earlier I had explained to a woman named after a borough that I knew the most fundamental element of beauty was sorrow, and that no human power could ever take that from me. She struggled with this, and so I said that I was frustrated, and would be happy with the whole place lit on fire.

The reason I say hi to Amber is so that she doesn't say hi to me first. Then I get to feel like I'm doing her a favor by allowing her to feel like the desire to be familiar is mutual. Sometimes she doesn't hear me.

Three nights ago after we shared a fit of hysterical laughter over a phobic possum, Jessica told me she had tried to slit her wrist with a piece of plastic. We laughed some more and I thought of my brother, I heard his chuckle and unease. I too will bury myself in time under the weight of my social camoflauge.

I can even still hear the possum, eating all the cat food now that the people are asleep.

I was a writer, once. The rest is memory.