early morning whenever a.m. i sat in the diner, trying to read a season in hell over and over again, getting nowhere. i wasn't even reading. i was standing out in the progressively heavier rainfall waiting for luke's cigarette to stop smoking. i was driving home, hallucinating. black cats and raccoons jumping feet from my tires and deer that extended from stumps and logs over shoulders of the road. going 75 on the back roads, the three haunted houses in a row. i was typing a letter. i was watching a bad movie. i was sleepwalking. i was calling phones that didn't answer. i was checking the sky every ten minutes to see how the light was changing. i spent hours unfurling my thoughts of you. i thought about the way we would be around each other after months of living apart. how amazing it would be. how nervous i would feel. i thought about how much i like our conversations about nothing. i thought about what i liked about you. i thought about what i loved about you. i thought about being able to see you right then. i thought about watching movies with you. i thought about being able to walk with you, side by side. i thought about you when the news came on tonight. i always think about you when anything happens. or is it the other way around? anything happens when i'm always thinking about you. i love being sleepy, but i hate sleep. feeling sleepy is useful, like being drunk when it's cold out. i'm feeling warm right now. being sleepy. it's the best thing about sleep. the hour or so before you go to bed and after you wake up, when you honestly can't tell if you're sleeping still or not. the word drowsiness just reminds me of a kinder word for drunkenness. my alarm clock makes no sense when i'm trying to reset it in the morning. it feels like i'm handling the most complicated and sophisticated of devices at 9am. i might as well get up an hour early, because this clock is seriously written in mandarin chinese. keep telling me everything. the stories, the thoughts, the chapters, the sentences. it's keeping me alive tonight. there isn't enough time for this. work work. 12:12 a.m. more thoughts unfurled while staring into a fire surrounded by drunk, confused 'friends'. smoke getting into my eyes and not caring. rain soaking my hair and jacket and flip-flop adorned feet and enjoying it. i am there, in your car, warming it up while you finish off your last five minutes of work. i am here, writing our conversations into one paragraph without quotations. i am there, singing you a song when you're tired, bringing you soup when you have a headache. i am here, picking out a movie at blockbuster next to you. let's get this one. or this one. there still isn't enough time for this. sleep sleep.