1.

i'm staring at the ceiling... i've just woken up... back from dreams of flying and dying... the sound of birds and people and traffic outside my open window, a square of light breaking in and slowly moving across the wall... i'm thinking and thinking, conversations and situations from last night playing out in my head... i become aware of the tongue in my mouth, and the taste of it... blood circulating through my horizontal body, heart pumping and brain hurting... too many drinks, i feel like scum, grime and sweat down to my bones... i crawl out of bed, and stumble to the toilet, catching a glimpse of my face in the mirror, slamming the door... all of a sudden, it's too quiet... i break the silence with a heavy flow of fluorescent piss, shut my eyes hard and open them back up to a dirty white wall... flush... her dirty mouth is still haunting me... something about it, both repulsing and magnetic, red lipstick and white teeth, like a pair of bloody eels swimming lazily between her nose and chin... i crawl back beside her on the mattress, flick on the tv, flipping through for some sports or something, and there's this girl on one of the channels, spitting image of her... and there's an overwhelming fear from inside me that turns everything to static...

i went to work, sunglasses and coffee, police sirens and a slow crowd... tourists happily fucking my day up... rushing down the sidewalk with a zig zagged ricochet, bumping into people, i finally got there, through the revolving door and down the humming escalator... i waited to land at the bottom, where the pack of women with purses, hairdos, bras and breasts clickety clacked all around the marble floors... talking to eachother with false enthusiasm... with those mouths...

*

i walked back to my apartment, a cold and lonely walk... even though the crowd was still quite thick, i felt as though i floated with the snow, completely by myself, looking into shop windows with only the company of mannequins... i imagined the line outside of a club, me at the front, with my golden ticket for my golden drink and special golden seat at the bar... the girl of my dreams on the stool next to me, spinning mechanically to look deep into my gaze, her hair like a collection of live black wires... as soon as i walked in the door, i pulled a bottle from the freezer, took off my clothes and poured myself a drink...

they showed up dressed up, three different perfumes and colognes... i backed away... back to my drink, looking up occasionally and saying something... even the dim light on the ceiling was too much for me, so i walked out to the balcony again and lit up, watching the scene down below... i spit off the side and watched it drop, imagining what would happen to my ragdoll body if that was me... the girl came out to keep me company... it was quiet and i didn't have much to say, but i did get her name, "bambi"... she took a drag of my smoke... her lipstick leaving a bloodlike ring around the filter... she handed it back, i dropped it and watched it's tiny light fall into a snowbank... her hair was blowing in the cold wind... she had that look in her eyes... we went back inside, and all of us had a few more drinks, talking about boring things, like work and relationships... i stayed pretty quiet, drinking my drink and waiting to get drunk enough to actually want to go out... eventually i was, and we did...