text: I work in pest control. It’s only been a few days but I’m enjoying it so far. Mechanical things come easy to me and I find joy in how much they distract me from my brain. I’m too smart to be stupid and too stupid to be smart so manual problem solving seems to be the perfect fit for me. I work with a guy named Andrew, he reminds me a lot of me but if I was 50 and Hawaiian and had worked in pest control for 30 years. He talks in really quick short bursts, sometimes it feels like he’s dying for someone to listen to him. He speaks as if he’s never talked before. I want to talk too but I don’t always know how to do that. I like his company though. I appreciated the work today, my head was spinning from an argument with my girlfriend last night. We fight a lot and it’s usually stupid. When it’s not my fault I end up feeling like it is my fault. I look back on my life often in these moments, my head feels like a projector trying to play 8 films at once. They keep spinning in and out with thousands of images and sounds and suddenly it explodes snapping me out of it only now I am a man standing in a room surrounded by fire with nothing but a cup of water. Eventually, the fire burns me up and I’m left staring at the ceiling begging God to stop my heart. Then I wake up, and it’s the next day, and I go to work. She was having a bad day yesterday. I think I cause a lot of those but she never says so. I’ve been trying hard to be good to her. I love her so much, it consumes every cell and thought of my body and soul. She had been off work for a couple of minutes and started crying. I held her and tried to comfort her but I don’t know how to do that very well. But I try. After she came out of it we watched TV for a bit and then I had to go to bed, I work early. She started looking sad and when I pried she told me she thinks I don’t like her and I was being short all night. I said I was sorry and I didn’t mean to and went to bed. While in bed I felt like a broken human as I usually do. Even when trying my best I just can’t seem to make people feel good or loved or something, I’m not even sure anymore. I put on the song “Aviator” by Michael Chapman, my favorite song, and started sobbing. I feel so alone sometimes. She came in later and held me from behind, I didn’t say anything but she told me she was getting up to turn off the lights. I was still crying so I think I was just offended. Then I heard her take a bong rip, talk to her cat, and go to the bathroom to brush her teeth. I knew she would come back and we could continue cuddling but for some reason, I just got mad. I wanted her to just say there. I should’ve just said that. Today we did a lot of work in shelters. The majority we go to are come and go style, anyone can show up, and as long as there’s a room they can come in and stay. Andrew told me the official name but I forgot because I can’t hear sometimes. We worked from the fourth floor down checking the rooms and cleaning out fruit flies. He was frustrated because the building doesn’t do anything to help. When I saw the first room I understood what he meant. Most of the rooms were the same. Piles of trash, piles of clothes, burned tinfoil squares from smoking heroin, needles (we yell needle when we find one), and a variety of shit, piss, blood, and vomit. One guy was making moonshine in his bathtub, turns out that’s a good place for fruit flies to grow. We did the best we could, we sprayed, and slapped, and wiped out as much as we could, but the building won’t remove the rotten trash so they’ll always be there. Some rooms were empty and some were full. We walked in on a couple shooting up, another lady was dripping with sweat from being sick and needing another hit. One lady yelled “get out” as soon as we entered and we did. One man couldn’t even open the door because he had too much stuff in his room, he just talked to us through the crack of the door and apologized, that made me sad again. I wondered if he were to die how long it’d take for someone to check? I think about that scenario with my own corpse too. We finished out the day and I felt a little better. The conversation and busyness of the day had finally burned me out so I wasn’t thinking so much. I also didn’t eat so I could focus on being hungry instead. On my drive home, the thoughts came back. I put Queen is Dead by the Smiths on but the deluxe version. I like the demo versions of the songs better. The Smiths are really good, I think Morrisey is full of shit but I like his lyrics a lot. Maybe I’m just full of shit too. As the music played I stopped paying attention because my mind kicked into overdrive again. I thought a lot about Pao and our fight and what I’d do when I saw her. We had texted a bit throughout the day but there was no punctuation so I assumed the worst. I imagined apologizing, maybe I should, or get flowers, or do something, but I just don’t think it’ll matter. I’ll fuck it up again. I started thinking about Brandon, Alex, my mom, my dad, my dog, and all the people and things and places who have left me and hurt me. Maybe I’m the problem. If you’re surrounded by people who have left you maybe it’s time to look inward. Then I figured I’d write this story instead, if it’s a story I can pretend it didn’t happen. I originally wanted to write about how I was poisoned, then I thought about how I didn’t ask for this life and I could use being “burned alive” as a metaphor for being raped and how I didn’t ask for “these scars” but that sounded so pretentious and blah blah blah so I wrote this instead. I texted my sponsor this morning though, I’m not sober anymore and have been blowing him off for a month. I felt bad, and I felt worse today, so I tried to fix it. He was happy to hear from me and we have plans for Saturday. I’ll probably cancel though - piece of shit. After the fight last night I laid awake staring at the popcorn ceiling and praying for my heart to stop. I use to do that as a kid. I’d be lying in pee and hearing my parents fight, or I’d be lying in pee and hearing no one because the house was empty. I think I just want to be dead, not because I’m miserable (my ex said I love being miserable) but because I want to spare the world from dealing with me. I hanged myself once. I think it was the only serious suicide attempt I’ve made. I got home from a day much like today and hung myself with a belt. I chickened out at the end but it was nice to know that I could do it and more importantly that it didn’t hurt. I think that’s my safety net now, I don’t have any friends or family or anything to fall back on, but I do have the option to tap out when I finally fuck my life up beyond repair. I don’t have that belt anymore though so I’d have to get a new one and that’d be a hassle. The one I have now is cheap leather and will probably just break under the weight, oh well, maybe another time then. I pulled into the parking lot and waited for Pao to let me in, I was convinced she would open the door and throw my shit at me and tell me to leave. I started crying at the thought. She came outside and softly said “hi.” We kissed and I made her hug me. We stood in silence holding each other and I tried not to cry again. We didn’t say anything and rode the elevator up. We went into her apartment and she went back to work and I took a piss, I always have to piss. I sat on the couch and started this shitty story. I hope I don’t fuck up tonight. I just want to be good. I do. I want to be happy, help people, build people up, and not lose my shit every time someone doesn’t give me what I need. I don’t want to die and I have hope that I’ll be happy and normal someday. Worst case scenario I hold onto that hope and die someday anyway. We all gotta go and as long as Hell doesn’t turn out to be real I can finally get some sleep.