this tepid neurotic ambivalence is mesmorizing. i can feel gravity's anxious grasp on each end of my cornea. not side to side like one would think, but front and back. stretching visual awareness out flat like pita bread. the supersonic jellyfish at the peripheals of my vision seem augmented, gigantic amoebic eye fuzzies with beer bottle fangs, grown from a hydroponic concoction of jim beam and amp energy. it's the sort of relationship that makes your tongue curl and your brain recoil. and makes raw broccoli sound oddly appetizing. ants are everywhere. running little bastards coursing like 3am traffic through my capillaries. red and yellow lights dashed out over hundreds of miles, caught in the time loop of shutter speed and finger pressing. running loops around the neurological pistons firing blank cartridges. get out the gasoline and matches. sleep is never over-rated. maybe it is. maybe i never noticed, too swollen in the numbing emptiness of digestion. too engorged on the vagrant facets of consumption, huffing like a brain-chemical addict. keep me away from heavy machinery. it's not fair. sometimes i think jesus has something against me personally. megan is sleeping comfortably next to me. curled up under blankets, cute pink button nose poking out at me. i hear laughter in her delicate snoring. 'jesus thinks you should get a hair cut,' her left nostril tells me. 'jesus wants you to finish college and ... something,' her right nostril tells me. and something, i ask it. 'yes,' her nostril flares, 'you'll know it when jesus decides he wants it.' i could get a hair cut tomorrow instead of going to work, i tell her ear lobe as i kiss the side of her neck when she rolls over and asks me what time it is. my eyes are not nearly baggy enough, i tell her. it's too early. nobody is ready. the moon is too low. the blinds are closed. i haven't rationalized a reason to sleep through any of this arbitrary bondaged existence yet. my owner, the new 42 inch plasma tv screen, sometimes yells at me and asks me why i'm not at work today. i'm working from home, i tell it, hiding the minesweeper game on my laptop screen. my owner asks me if i like its theater-like display and 1080p thingy and what i'm doing with life. how school is. are there babies on the way. how's our darling little megan. are you a doctor yet. do you run the company yet. where are they sending you next. how long. how far. are you willing to jump through hoops of liquid nitrogen while wearing the body paint of the original tin man. when's the wedding. las vegas, i tell her ear lobe. make it easy. i'm practically begging. my other owner hollers at me from the garage, exhausted rumbling: you haven't gone far enough. take me further. ride me. undulate along the ribbons of black night. dit dit across the yellow lines, beckoning the oncoming lights closer, the roar of air through your hair chilling the glint of moon on my hood running the fingers of your hand across i cut it off now before it gets too far. megan's left nostril does. 3am rides are so far out of the question. there is always work in the morning. laundry in the hamper. soap scum in the shower. it doesn't matter how hard you try, there's always something. this is why i can't complain, even if i want to. there's always something. something lovely. even if that something lovely is a booger in her left nostril whistling at me as she breathes sleep in bed next to me. there's always something. 'i love you,' i told the back of her head once, a long time ago, right before i fell asleep. 'i love you more,' she responded. i would have jumped if her legs hadn't been tangled on all six sides of mine. instead, my breath ran away with the neighbors daughter and my heart punched my left kidney. i could have sworn she had been sleeping for the past four hours. as it was, i told her, 'no you don't.' 'yes, i do,' she said. 'i counted.' and she held up three thin fingers. 'i know you can't count past two, so it wasn't much of a competition.'