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.