Saturday 7:00 am she wakes.
No energy and the weight on her shoulders of too much too late.
She’ll never catch up with life in a million years now.
Might as well just fucking give up. Heats up the skillet.
Looks for the package of potatoes, finds she left it out in the night.
Weighs the odds of eating them anyway, but chickens out and dumps them in the garbage. What the fuck’s she gonna eat now? There’s a tiny bit of shrimp cocktail left from the other night. Breakfast of champions. The dog starts whining for it. The dog whines like a fucking hyena sometimes. You’d think he was dying. He’s just been fed and everything. Babies are still sleeping at least, thank god. Fucking internet’s out again like it is practically every Saturday. Tries to call the one friend she knows will be awake but the damned ringer is off as always. Everyone else will be sleeping. She has to have caffeine. She wishes she could just have whiskey instead, but makes a coffeepot full of strong black tea. There’s a pain low in her back from cramps and from sitting oddly and from sleeping at the foot of the bed again. Curls up in the corner with a Vonnegut book that her ex said she’d hate but which she doesn’t. Puts on a Bowie/Eno compilation to complete the dissociative experience. It’s almost time to get out the spoken word William Burroughs even. It’s a cynical surreal disjointed sort of morning. Somehow she’s got to buck it up today. Pay some bills. Do some laundry. Start digging her way out of this apathetic dusty smelly mess. Has to be real again. Has to be real again. She hasn’t been real in about a week now. Forgets how she managed this the last time. Somewhere there’s something that’ll lift this grey. Someone somewhere knows the magic word or maybe there’s a bit of music that’ll do it or something on the television. Can’t find the fucking remote and it’s been ages since she watched television. It’s July and the fucking mosquitos are back and she’s itching like mad. Covered in mystery bruises as usual. Sallow skin, dark circles around pretty eyes, ugly little feet with calloused little heels, sitting there in her purple faery t-shirt wishing anyone in the world thought she were remotely important at this instant, not that she’d believe it if they said so. It’s probably just the hormones talking. Tomorrow, she’ll be an egoist once more. Today she is wretched and sad and lacking in energy and full of words that no one wants to hear. And nobody loves you when you don’t love yourself, they say. And she just fucking loathes herself right now. For being weak and beaing helpless and feeling sorry for herself instead of just getting up and fixing it and because no one needs her. She’s merely an interesting afterthought. A footnote. Best supporting actress in the movie version of everyone else’s life.And everything irritates her right now. And she wish the sun weren’t up right now. The cooler’s too cold, but if she turns it off it’s too warm. And isn’t that the story of her life? She’s tired but she can’t go back to sleep and sometimes dying sounds nice just for the rest that that involves although she’d never do it in a million years. She could sleep for a million years if only she could sleep at all. She could scream for a million years but no one would ever hear it.No one’s listening. No one’s home. Go back to bed, little girl. We’ll tell you when you’re needed. It isn’t now. It’s never now. You’re a lifetime benchwarmer is what you are. You’re fucking royalty, all the same. You’re Princess Afterthought,. Queen of things that people shove into desk drawers and forget about and books they mean to lend you but never get around to and invitations that get lost in the mail. Goddess of apathy and indecision and three quarters of a job well done. And now the babies are up and it’s time to smile and yawn and pretend you’re trying. Pour the cereal, turn on the cartoons, go into autopilot, because sometimes love is robotic motions when you’d rather not move at all. And so it goes. Thank you and good night.