I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, exhausted by the folks who victimize me in my bad dreams.

I hadn’t taken the pill I’m supposed to take for nightmares. Twenty-four hours make up a day. I rolled out from under the covers. Rougher than the birth of Jesus.

Outside my window: the broad daylight I used to drive myself into before the wheels got icky, and I lost my license, and I put a sock in the access door. (By then, I seriously did not see the point of gasoline).

I live in a little bullshit apartment. A zoo. A joke. A lethal rash. A trauma box. There’s a full-blown gym downstairs. I don’t use it. These are just my surroundings.

I took my life for a walk this afternoon. See, I was angry at it––my life. I needed a siesta more than anything else. I’m in the middle of a summer I never asked for.

But then again, I have to admit: Even I sometimes can’t help but laugh at my own smell.

Before I knew it, I’d walked myself here––the produce section of this grocery store––thinking about really pulling the plug on myself. I’d just been freaking myself out about smallpox.

Apparently I was done strolling past musical beggars and temporary restaurants. It was now fruits and vegetables, fruits and vegetables, and the silly fact that I could.

Like, why not, at this juncture? I’ve had too much of a life already. Or––who knows? Just some ancient pain of mine? No: I was picturing, as usual, the “friends” still wanting to hurt yours truly.

I’m psychically collared to these untrustables. They used to stick around, and I thought they’d be lifelong, and what a great big dummy I was. I'm astonished by the illegalness of their feelings.

Boy, did they break some essential laws. I’m talking about collective community emotions, confidentiality, and love.

In the arctic produce section––goosebumps––I began considering beating them to some punch.

They certainly don’t care enough about me anymore to kill me. Though I’m not sure if they ever cared like actual people care.

If I offed myself, I reasoned, they’d feel super ashamed forever and ever. Each one of them would claim to have been my number one partner in crime, my top confidant. And my ex-girlfriend: She’d say she tried to help me.

The lack of spine in them. I could steal the rest of their thoughts.

There’s the chance, however, that if I went through with it, they’d label me as some deceased perpetually confused manipulator––typical, typical, typical––just as they did with Leon. And Melissa.

I was staring at the baby tomatoes, waiting for the cruelest blackmail: snapshots from Atlantic City––visualizing those flames...

See, they could still hurt me to death, and they’d actually be doing me a favor, and the punch wouldn’t matter now.

I felt the bags under my eyes with my cold fingers; there’s a kind of tired that hurts. I don’t mean to be such a grouch. The loudspeaker called for backup at the registers.

My stomach rumbled. Coffee and Tic Tacs. The community keeps changing the taste of everything. This is the aisle where you don’t see any high-fructose corn syrup: its seekers, all the temptation. I smelled citrus and the generosity of orchards––their industry, an eternal promise.

I met a grapefruit the size of my skull. I wanted to pick her up, so I did. I thought about swallowing her whole, like a snake does a rat. Wouldn’t that be the ticket? In my hand, she was a cold smooth solution.

My slave thoughts, the ultimate medicine, the little sticker on her subtropical citrus skin. I asked her, Weren’t these supposed to be the accepting-yourself years?

And? My goodness? What is it? Where is it? And then? Why can’t I touch it? The mood stabilizer I’m prescribed: it's supposed to slow down this line of thinking.

Okay okay okay, here’s what happens. I take my medication. I feel fine. I go off it. I don't need it.

And then I always begin to wonder, again: Is now the moment? To head myself off at the pass?

To be kissed by some lethal bus. To wake up in a bedroom on fire. A gang of hornets laying eggs inside my head. A little California gas chamber action. Don’t mind a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. Don’t mind if my body washes up on the river banks.

Dr. Linda bills herself as an anti-suicide trauma expert. She says things like, You know, a little Zoloft can go a long way. She says things like, Come on now! Pent up non-communication is a straight up violation of your probation! And then I always threaten to throw myself out of Dr. Linda’s window. But Dr. Linda says that my perpetual suicidal thinking is a dead waste of money. That I suffer from a generalized denial of joy. Once, she recited, from a motherfucking pamphlet, Eating grapefruit while taking antidepressants may cause complications. Grapefruits block the absorption of the medication in the intestines by binding with enzymes. This causes a rise of the medication in the bloodstream. She asked if I’d been consuming any grapefruit products lately. I always try concentrating on the shitty art behind her. I am so bad at her homework. I say nothing. (Dr. Linda, I try to practice mild self-care.) She wants some new, happy mood for me. She wants me to breathe with my own wrong decisions.

I wish I could live on the wits I don’t have anymore.

I’m supposed to talk about all the difficult and painful things (events, episodes, etc.) while I watch her purple sparkly wand move back and forth.

God, listening to me talk must be like listening to a headache.

And, sometimes, with Dr. Linda, I lapse into the third person. Must be for the distance of it? For the practice of that? For example: Well, one afternoon, when he was much younger, he tried shaving, and this was for the first time. He’d some new facial hair he desperately wanted to rid himself of. This was one of those sudden urges. You know, those crazy sudden urges everyone always pretends to know nothing about. He ended up using a disposable razor for women on himself. It was lying around, dull and exhausted from months of armpit duty. He cut himself up badly. The razor belonged to his mother. And his mother, the emasculation master, went, “I’d like to see the other girl!” Later on, his mother would say that Prozac made him evil. On the other hand, he’s never learned how to apologize for the things he does. He’s been wanting to save a blessing for the lottery for a long time now. He’s felt like a fucking left-handed freak for a long time now too.

And then I tell Dr. Linda that I want to start a school. And then, an airport. See, the kids at the school could use the airport––duh!

My silly little thoughts. My breakable little feelings. These slow sessions. I bring things up. I don’t bring things up.

But? All the friends? Yeah? Where did they what?

Well, you know, with Dr. Linda, I can talk about only the logistics of what happened––its outlines, the choreography.

This grapefruit. I can smell the tree life it had.

They discovered me at the freshman photography showcase. They L-O-V-E-D my pictures of urban decay. They were especially taken with a shot of vicious yet sublime graffiti on the side of a home for disenfranchised moms: battered, the verge of vanishment.

After the show, it’s a familiar story––I’m a little ashamed; their acceptance pulled me in––I’d been craving it all my life.

We colleged and summered together. A lit match you could just eat.

They enjoyed family portfolios for cocaine and heroin. They craved trouble where there shouldn’t’ve been––mandating mountains out of molehills.

It was simple: the left nostril was cocaine, the right heroin. It was simple: I watched the holes in their noses, the holes in their noses.

Too cool for school, too cool to be fooled, airheads with attitudes; familiarity breeds contempt; the narcissism of small differences; hands, neck, throat, face, and alcohol.

They wore their grandmothers’ clothes. They smoked heavy drugs and bragged about their eloquent hallucinations. They were ozoned in their grandmothers’ coats and dresses. They were afraid of little kids. Can you imagine that? Afraid of little kids? Now they have the thrilling jobs they always wanted: computers, art auctions, currency hedging strategies, etc. Mastered the whole New York restaurant reservation situation, too.

My entire existence––they ended up wanting to finish it. (Yeah, I know exactly what you’re thinking: that my own narcissistic paranoia sparkles harder than my feminine side.)

I’ve forgotten that I’m in a grocery store. I’m standing in my past. Cleanup on aisle past.

In the beginning, I’d been right up their alleys, and every week was a sunny one. They told me they’d never met anyone like me before. Yeah, I felt special. They told me I was a brilliant artist––like, the next best thing. They found my mood swings exotic and compelling. They said it was amazing that I only wore black t-shirts, and I taught them how to scramble eggs––like my grandmother––with a massive amount of cream cheese. They said they needed my sense of humor. I needed them to laugh. I once declared that doggystyle is the position in which the penetrator gets the closest to the female heart. Indeed, I’d often go, Doggystyle! Straight to the heart! They’d drop dead laughing. I told this other joke, also sexual: “She was a genius philosopher with blowjob lips: First, she blew my mind!” And they’d drop dead laughing.

I was dispatched a generous girlfriend. Beverly Hills High was her actual alma mater, and she was stunning and sometimes needed to work on her breath. She came straight from the crew’s heart. And that was more than enough.

We mimicked hardcore pornography. What a tremendous shock to my fantasy life. I’ll never ever get that sex again.

Cunnilingus petrified me. Until her. I liked her legs a lot. I came to love her breath. I was planning on loving her all the way. As in, if something was happening to her, then it was happening to me, and all that corny jazz. The saddest part. We were supposed to stay together.

But she laughed at me. Whenever I failed, she laughed. This one time, she threw her replacement car keys at my mouth. Guess I thought that was part of it––you know, give and take?

She explained “Queen For A Day” to me. (It is an agreement between federal prosecutors and people under criminal investigation: They can tell the government about their knowledge of crimes with the assurance that their words will not be used against them later.) You’re my queen for the day. (This is what she told me, and it hardly made any sense at all.)

Turned out she was simply an informant––top echelon––the whole time.

Before I knew it, I’d been fighting with all of them for a year straight.

It began with the get-together I wasn’t invited to. The Khmer Rouge costume party. And then my girlfriend was busy all the time. Her text messages contained fewer complete words. I obstinately ignored it all.

I realized too late they’d ceased appreciating my gregarious clownery––what made me me.

They’d stopped swearing on my life. They’d given up on it. I’d become the butt of their jokes, and that was most of the time. It was like eating sushi in the dark: I never knew which way was inside out.

So I tried harder.

Let’s not beat around the bush: My bitterness is not collapsing anytime soon––they could’ve used my divergences mightily.

I did not want to see that they were malicious vacuum cleaners––for too long a while. They had tricked me into making decisions I didn’t want to make. For instance, Clarence, my first friend at college: I didn’t have to cut him out.

They’d been self-abusing into my socks. They were a suggestible bunch. They could’ve excelled at religion.

Oh, how their palms contacted their denimed knees on Judgement Day––the “intervention” on Martha’s Vineyard...

My mouth: shut. My hands: tied. The time: eleven o’clock in the morning. The living room: my girlfriend’s parents’ summer house. The cleaning lady: vacuuming. The moment: not one I wanted to save.

They were criminally condescending. They told me things I didn’t ever need to hear. Usefulness has never been your thing. You couldn’t not be a problem if you tried. We’re officially tired of the novelty. We’re too used to your smell. You talk too much. You talk about yourself too much. Your so-called Photography has gotten boring. Your Work exploits the disenfranchised. You take the same picture over and over again.

They even accused me of leaving a toilet unflushed two Januarys ago: Jesus, you really emptied yourself.

They’re still raising my cortisol levels, Dr. Linda.

They sure knew how to swing big knives, Ms. Grapefruit.

Never tell somebody they’re the reason for something.

I was sitting still. I wasn’t breaking anything. I tried standing up.

They pressed me back into my rocking chair. They acted like they were born with strawberries in their mouths. They wouldn’t budge. They started puking at me. They were like little Ancient Mayan kids. They wanted to play soccer with my balled-up guts. They wanted to open up my brain. They wanted to play around with the part that makes all the language happen.

Finally, they wanted exactly nothing to do with me, and I was released without a stomach.

If I’m being truthful? There is a little devil inside. And I’m not too sure about him.

But? It’s all that matters? Right? If it feels bad? Still?

I’m trapped. Like I can’t stop taking showers through the sink of my favorite prison cell. I don’t know the size of my waist anymore. It’s illegal to put your head in your hands at the bar. I once turned fourteen on Valentine's Day. My teeth shake a little in my mouth.

Look! I want to yell at all the turnips, The garbage in my head! It’s broken!

I shouldn’t bring this grapefruit into my life. I carefully set it back down on the pile.

The color of the foods, the health of my eyes––bottomless, clear as mud...

In the corner of the aisle, under the sign that says ORGANIC, I spot a warm embrace that victimizes me further.

A very gentle-looking woman—somewhere more than middle-aged—sneezes like my mother—and, my mother, she sneezes like a great white shark.

Next up, a very beautiful woman––maybe fifteen years older than me––passes by. Eyes: sparkling. Hair: done up in a bun. Skin: brilliantly textured. A cake for every occasion, so sexy she could make a blind man salivate, you never know who you’re going to end up falling in love with.

Then another beautiful woman, but she’s much younger (somewhere south of twenty-five), plus fake freckles.

And then a man with double the amount of eyelid he should have. How does he hold his eyes open? Could he get the lids taken in?

Look at you all––so unbelievably right. These shoppers’ lives continue where mine ends. Here, hold my disease, please.

The eyelid man drops something. I pick it up. I’m a good person. A sweetheart. A real gentleman. I’m scared of people who can flip the switch on compassion. The eyelid man thanks me very much.

After the “intervention,” I got FEELINGS tattooed on my forearm.

(I contemplated getting WHY DON’T YOU LIKE ME? on some other body part, but never pulled the trigger.)

Dr. Linda warns against burning down the house, especially when you don’t have to.

And it’s how their mouths still move against me in my head.

As in, sometimes, I really can feel their mouths manufacturing movement in my head—I mean, can you imagine what that’s like? Can you even begin to?

And, now, just how long gone are the hurters?

Oh! This is no way to spend an innocent afternoon!

Dr. Linda goes, Stop apologizing for your existence!

I greatly prefer fruits to vegetables––that’s just me, but I suspect that’s most other people, too.

So, yes, leaving is such an option; strolling all the way to Heaven through the infested park of my past is an option. I won’t care there. I won’t care about refunds there.

But? I can’t just take what I want? And? That’s what I’m protesting?

And? Can I recover into something painless? Something I won’t mind? Like, “The Sunny Side Of Death Valley: Is It Real?”

And? Are they still laughing at me? Should I save room for dessert? Can an itch ever go away by itself? Is it too late to call up Clarence? And tell him that I’m sorry? Can a person ever just magically fucking forget?

And! Then! All the watermelons start exclaiming: “Only you know what you’ve gone through!”

I take some sleep out of my eyes. The apples are shining back at me. I just let them. And the oranges after that.