7am-5pm

I'm starting to like that empty feeling deep in my stomach. The worst part is every time I'm not hungry I am begging myself to be. My appetite is a ghost. I guess I finally got lucky.

6am-6pm

I am officially nocturnal. A bat, a koala, a snow leopard, an owl. Nearly extinct. Fuck it.

I was under the impression that reading a book long enough would make me sleepy. So I popped some sleeping pills and picked up one of the Palahniuk novels I used to read a million times over during study halls and basketball games. What I didn't count on was myself. I needed to finish that book. Need to turn that last fucking page before I'd lay in bed and pretend to sleep for long enough for it to actually happen. Chapter 9 my eyes went blurry. Chapter 12 I saw light trails. Almost finished with Chapter 22 I looked out my window and was surprised to see a blue sky, birds flying everywhere. It was goddamn springtime. I blinked a few times, realizing it was the 3am and there was a blanket over the window. Hallucinating. Laughing, I spilled my head over the edge of the bed and started walking on the ceiling. My bedroom was a whole new world. I was Christopher fucking Columbus. Who would have thought the most interesting thing to happen to me all week would be some Lunesta and my cat growing wings. Fuck it.

5am-7am

No human being should wake up at a time like this. I got into Christina’s car and let her drive me home. I’m eighteen years old and I still don’t have a learner’s permit. Some people just can’t learn. Some people spend their Driver’s Ed money on Europe. Pathetic. I tip-toed through the cold white powder on the ground, running to the cracked #7 at a slugs pace. I took one look around before I stepped through the door. Snow was draped over the trees like they were embarrassed to be seen without their clothes on. They were naked. Cold. You caught them out of the shower. They were sad and beautiful. They were a housewife in the 50s. 

There was too much time on my hands, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I was holding a roll of quarters at the arcade but every machine was broken. The refrigerator hummed so loudly I forgot where I was. I looked at the coffee machine. Just looked. I cracked open the fridge and rooted through the vegetable drawer. I pulled out a bottle of White Zinfandel. Hiding things from myself. I filled a mug to the brim and started to walk down the stairs. Four stairs down I turn around and sigh, marching back up them. I grabbed the bottle and headed back down. I place everything on my bedframe and slouch onto the floor in front of my record player. I blow the dust off my favorite record and turn on the machine. I can hear a muffled Frank Sinatra over the buzz of the speakers. Of course. I take a closer look and the needle’s gone. Snapped off. Maybe the cat did it. Maybe I did it. Maybe we got drunk and did it together. I wouldn’t put anything past me. Or the cat. I sighed again and got up. I fell a little too quickly onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. I closed my eyes, and opened them to meet a pair of yellow ones staring back at me. Albus. He sunk his teeth into my left cheek and then got off my chest, sitting on my right. For a house cat he sure had a lot of nerve. I just rolled over and looked at him, trying my best to tell him with my eyes that I loved him but he was a little bitch. He was too interested in the poster behind my head. He was just a boy in my life. Blameless. I was the invisible woman. Hell, I always wanted a super-power.

I slipped a documentary about sharks into my DVD player. I curled up under a mess of sheets and just stared at my phone. Blank. Years of technology allowing any person in the world to reach you in seconds, just so you know not one of those people want to talk to you.  I sigh again. I’m so bored of being bored. I want to go climb a mountain or something. Well, maybe not a mountain, but a really big hill. I want to sit on that big hill and close my eyes and be in Burlington again. I miss it. I miss the tiny city light up at night. Peppermint hot cocoa and sugar cookies. Booze and all those beautiful drugs. I'll come back to you.

5am-3pm

I am sick and tired of sitting in front of my broken down six inch television watching infomercials for shit diet pills at three in the morning while doing curl-ups and crossing my fingers that the twelve I took for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that day are doing their job.

I woke up unknowing of the time, as per always. The Spider-Man blanket I keep strewn over my bedroom windows is there for a reason, and maturity isn’t it. I crawled up the stairs and started to brew enough coffee to caffeinate the entire North East. I slid down onto the cold tile floor and realized it was spotless. I had almost forgotten I spent hours scrubbing away at my apartment until the orange sunrise slipped through the windows. I don’t know why I do these things. Last week I purposely destroyed my entire closet just for the satisfaction of laying in the mess of clean laundry. Spring fresh scent. Too much time on my hands. I peered over the counter to see the coffee pot filled to the brim. I got onto my knees and slowly opened the cabinets. Spotless. Every mug just seemed too small. I sat back down on the ground and pushed open the pantry, grabbing a mixing bowl. I glanced at the clock on the stove. 3:14pm. What had my life come to? Alphabetizing the refrigerator at 4am and coffee in mixing bowls. I got up, placed the bowl on the table. Spotless. I closed the curtains. I fumbled around for the hundreds of lighters I thought I had. Useless. Grabbing a book of matches I lit up the six candles around the room, including the cigarette I had hid in the telephone book drawer a few days prior. Hiding things from myself. I flipped up my laptop, cracked and busted. Another reminder of too many drunken nights. As if I needed another. I just sat there at the kitchen table. Spotless. And yet such a mess at the same time.