bed-ridden: a story of perfect irony

[ricebelly]

Yesterday I watched reruns of daytime dramas I'd already seen, and I didn't know if it was cold outside but the miniature X-mas tree salesmen blew clouds of breath into their fists. My roommate started crying on the phone, snot running down her lip, she doesn't have any friends here but I don't want her hanging on me; we are two gigantic tumors with no body. I went out at midnight to buy cigarettes at the candy store where everyone only buys beer or lotto tickets or more cigarettes. My nose and ears got frostbite and fell off on the way, clattered like charcoal briquets into a half slid-open manhole. Who would crawl down into the sewer, its converging rivers of shit and dead goldfish and wedding rings, who would think otherwise.

They locked the gates, the iron-spiked gates with barbed wire that block the easiest way home and I jumped it.

I soaked my foot in the bathtub and put a frozen bag of leftovers on it and wrapped it in a dishtowel doused in whiskey. It snowed for the first time and I can't put weight on it.