Illustration by Zain Murdock
I was taking a piss earlier today, it was drizzling, and I remember wishing my Crocs weren’t worn out so my feet could avoid getting slimy. I looked down at my penis affectionately and felt happy after remembering it had been inside you twice most days.
I was meant to can peppers for your mom today, but I soon realized I couldn’t make an open fire in the persistent drizzle. I walked back to my office and doodled for most of the day. My back-up plan whenever something fails is what you told me on my dad’s birthday in 2013: count ten deep breaths and if that doesn’t work go write a poem. I wrote one about America’s obsession with happy endings and NYT’s obsession with sad endings. It was frozen horse-shit.
The carpenter ants hatched even though your mom drilled holes and funneled ANTKILL through the walls. Their half-poisoned heads continue flying into the window, exasperating and exhausting both themselves and me. Killing them with the swatter you got me at Trifty feels like too upbeat of an activity, so most afternoons I lay half numb on the daybed, perpetually irked by their buzzing.
Google Chrome has been suggesting ads for suicide prevention lines. I don’t know why. I looked at my search history and the last entry was “where is my neighbors?”. The one before that was “how to kill slugs”. I know Google is watching and wants me to buy stuff, but I’ve been out of cash since the funeral. The office is perpetually cold, its August now and my skin is dipped in purple and premature goose bumps. I’m too lethargic for chopping wood, so I will wait until September. I stopped chopping and stacking that week, and I've now run out of dry wood and the fog won't let the sun come out and play.
I liked it when you were here to cajole me into affection mid work day. But now you’re dead and I’m half naked in my cold office (I’m wearing the pink hat you knit from Youtube last year, I wear it all the time)
It's morning now and I’m sitting on a 43-year old moldy wall-to-wall carpet holding a doodle in my hairy arm looking in the bathroom mirror sideways. I look like a pale Peeping Tom with my penis poking out at nothing every morning. It doesn’t mourn with my brain, but whenever I do get an afternoon erection it dies once my brain swims out of delusion. I’ve been thinking about how potent mirrors are in aiding our delusions. They can trick us into believing anything our minds (or the internet) wants. As you’ve remarked numerous times, my beard doesn’t grow evenly and I haven't trimmed my moustache since you died. I look like I have a carpeted wall of hair over my upper lip. Food gets stuffed in between the denser spots and when the stench gets too bad I take a shower. I can’t find my Peanut. You probably know where it is.
I brought your mom over here and she talks a lot. It doesn’t seem like she stopped talking ever since she got here. You were right, she can be unbearable, but I am hoping that through her presence here I will somehow make you think I am a good person. I’m hoping you can’t hear my thoughts. You were right about the slugs, although I still think their mating practices are amazing. I hate them now because they ate all the potatoes and cabbages you planted.
Andreea (she/her) is a second year student in GS studying Sust. Dev and Psychology.