Vignettes of a Sort.

1.

Now, it never really made any sense to me, logically, to spend exorbitant amounts of money on anything that wasn’t instantly gratifying and experiential. The materialism of a fifty-two-season year is sort of off-putting. I’d much rather mope down some side alley sloshed as hell after spending a hefty pocket on a couple of cocktails, or in my recent outings; multiple cocktails coupled with a beer I doubt is properly appreciated, swishing over my repentant palate—indulgences can be additive. It’s 4:37 am. The drunken tirade must amuse or at least I hope so, as I stumble step while pressing off a wall, declaring my support for the stoic figure and the reciprocity is lovely it’s delusional. Of course I do, in fleeting relations such as the one framed above, do you ever feel robbed of something when intoxicated and investigative? Hark the hollowed wall, whispering sweet nothings where nothing transpires apart from delving into stripped mental sockets. Almost six feet tall but four feet short when hunched over the banister, en route to the bathroom with only socks on—I never liked argyle, but I still went home with you and you cared for me anyway. It’s 5:59 am. The afterglow constitutes instant nostalgia. I’ve known you four months in these past eighty minutes, and I’m about to blackout in the next four. It took me one week to remember my name and about twice that to forget yours.

2. 

To all that came between that only we know about. It’s been several months since I thought about myself. Wandering was sort of the successive trend but it’s 9:57 pm on a Sunday, ripe scents of monogamy pour from the nursery with all the accountability of a load bearing beam sunken comfortably forming a thoroughfare. Not that I mind, of course but fuck, second child, car, and house all at once. I lost thirty-two years in the office last quarter but that’s the American, right? The bliss is in remembering that life insurance policy, how it might persevere through the years. underrated, as this whole parenting thing is pushed into egocentrism—not that it’s a misconception. Some parents are horrible. I remember one Halloween my parents relegated my sister and I to my grandmother’s house. You know, the one with white everything, somehow it’s almost scorching yet oddly humid and where the hell does that odor come from anyway? Anyway, when the latch closed on that prison door, rivers flowed down those ridiculous costumes and my parents honestly thought we had a positive experience. The point is: I would never make my kids go scavenge for treats, only to be locked in the dungeon of double-single beds with an awkward side table between. It’s 11:43 pm, I’m less pious now but at least I keep upright before 5:00 pm. There is this cynicism about the whole house and it’s pestering—not like it’s relevant anyway, thirty-two years less the worry.

3. 

Did you know that left handed people generally go for a dive at sixty-six, whereas right handed dominants tend to bite it around seventy-five? By being spurned by the hand of God, left handed heathens seem more altruistic; it’s either they die from overt benevolence, or the Catholics keep on chucking them down tubes to an outer realm. Sometimes I start crying when falling into the television because this or that memorializes your left pinky—how the FUCK was it that crooked anyway? One ounce of dignity I acquired from the bodega down the street turned into a ninety-nine cent loosie I smoked while crying the other night. Sobbing over the banister, it’s 12:14 pm some day in March where twenty days ran past but it all blurs into one stairwell—if there’s a runner, half-drunken slumber ain’t too bad considering I haven’t stepped into our encyclopedic gallery since that one 5:59 am.

4. 

I was taken out last night—by that order, I guess the execution was sort of cathartic. I remember waking up around quarter past 4 am, sweating like the furred and lanky Italian I am, unable to keep dry. So I sat up to knocks tripled on the door every few minutes but the amusing part was: I had no idea what the hell was going on, all that resonated was a deep rasp.

5.

Skin sacks of tumultuous self profundity waddle to unlock their rectangles. Jimmy doesn’t understand nuclear fission and the next fourteen years will include three zip codes and parents. Bob Evans offers solace continually; Jimmy stands cornered on the kitchen linoleum between a poorly veneered table and bedtime above the plastic fork tines pressed against his palate. Brush—swish—swash and spit and repeat twice—”Go to sleep, it’s 8 pm.” In-lock, the parents relegated and Jimmy’s yearning for warmth but it’s just snowing two inches an hour. “Teddy! Teddy!” Solitaire, learn it young. “Teddy Bear!” Those glow-in-the-dark cosmos stickers? The now dimming foam-backed glints someone thumbed into the plaster ceiling.