text: &#x200B; it’s hard to put your finger on it, but it’s there. a persistent thrumming, wet and alive like a heart, like the blood that fills your ears and your veins. it’s something close to crying--a slow, all-consuming loneliness. you are twenty-three and have never been kissed. your mom calls every thursday. the routine of it all makes you ill; you answer her, bored, and fake like you’re about to leave for work every time. your mom sees through the lie, you hear the hurt in her voice, end up crying on your bed for an hour thinking about the lunch box she bought you in fourth grade. the soft canvas, torn in places like a dog’s ear. you wonder where it is now. your roomates tell you to kill the spider. the loneliness comes in waves. it builds like wax around your ribs, coating your insides in a perfect cast. it is a candle with two wicks, each burning beneath the other. you think it would be gone if you moved to another city. you daydream on the freeway about turning in your two week’s notice, fucking off to france or florida. you haven’t had any friends since high school, and thinking that you might be one of the dipshits who peaked at eighteen thoroughly depresses you. you resolve to get closer to your coworker, but then you find out she makes lasagna in the microwave every day, leaving sauce spatters in her wake and never bothering with a paper towel. this is the last straw. you feel a snake coil into your esophagus; it spits bile like venom from your teeth and your body makes up its mind. you spit up your coffee onto the cold breakroom tile and watch the puddle inch like a slug around your feet. no one is there; your coworker has returned to her seat, leaving only smears of tomato and the heavy smell of cooking cheese in the air. that’s what did it. you pick up the roll of paper towels, use it to mop up the spill. the whole roll--not just a sheet. you roll it like a sodden bowling ball over the remains of your breakfast, drop it into the garbage like a hawk dropping prey. you should call your mom. that night on your bed, you sit on a blank mattress. your sheets in the wash, your bags packed, locked into the trunk of your roommate’s hatchback. you wonder if you’ll really just steal their car; if you’ll drive back in the morning, drunk and sobbing. where will you go? gentle snoring emanates from the room across the hall. the loneliness holds its breath. you get up, walk softly across the apartment, and out into the night. the door creaks when you shut it behind you. you check the time: 4:58. it is near dawn. the city will rise soon, the sun will stretch its arms over the pale new day. but for now, it is dark. stars are strewn like salt crystals across the murky sky. you wrap your arms around yourself, trying to hold in the night, the dark, the cool humid air. you are trying to smother the loneliness in your body, to squeeze it out through your pores. you stare into the trees. you have a sudden urge to walk into them, into the forest, thick moss covered ground. you want to know what lies ahead.