24 hours

Everyday I get up and sit in my chair and drink coffee. Sometimes I get up barely before noon and sometimes I’m up at dawn. I drink coffee and tell myself for the next five minutes that today will be a good day. An even day. I will hear back about work, I will have a good bike ride and I will work on my short story. After I tell myself that everything will work out and there is no reason to be anxious, full of regret or angry I go about trying to make my dream of a good day come true. Then sometime around 9pm that day I will creatively destruct the last 12 hours and try to make sense of it. Did I do anything progressive today? Am I still a relevant human being? Am I loved? Do I love myself? Why does everyone else seem to have all the answers, all the friends, all the fun, all of California, all of New York City, all of God’s love, all of the total Milky Way? Why? I think about all these things and manage to gulp down a couple of glasses of water. Toss and turn. Get up and write some more. Toss and turn. Listen to little noises. Try to shut my brain off by pretending my feet are asleep or dividing numbers by three. At about 3am I finally fall asleep with the computer light seeping into my eyelids throwing off my circadian rhythm. 

That's it.