THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE SAFETY

**written mid-last-lonely-and-terrible summer**

It is 3:30 in the afternoon and I am sitting at the computer in my underwear, feeding myself grapes like a king with a ceiling fan going over my head like a slave waving me with wooden plate feathers. I have not eaten since this moring. In the warm milk of the afternoon I am lounging. In the clothes I slept in and in the chair I have been sitting in since 10 o'clock this morning. There is sweat built up on my skin. I do not shower enough. I don't care enough to shower. I don't have a job. I am a goddamn fucking writer. Jesus.

All day I have not worn a shirt. It is summer and I have not worn a shirt because I did not sleep in a shirt and I am still not wearing one. I am scratching my head like a chimpanzee. Today I saw a documentary on PBS about chimpanzees. I am eating with my hands. I am disgusting. Jesus.

During the commercials, I get up and look at myself in the sliding mirror closet doors in my parents' bedroom. I look at my frizzy hair from the shower I had last night and I look like a Jewish bookie. That's funny, I say and then I laugh at myself. I look at my teeth and I say, I should take better care of my teeth. They are repulsive. There is shit caked around my incisors. Jesus.

I wait until 4 o'clock for Seinfeld to come on, that way I don't have to think. I just laugh. I can just laugh. I didn't waste today.

I have a list of things to do. I wrote this list this morning when I woke up, early, 7:30. I woke up early to write. I went to bed late and yesterday afternoon I said, Goddammit, I'm going to wake up early tomorrow and write. And I did. I woke up early this morning and I worked on a short story about the plasma donation center I used to go to on the corner of M and 17th. It was going nicely and I had been working for an hour when I came to a wall; I was stuck. I had a question about musical notation and the correct vocabulary for a specific thing I saw in my mind. I could draw this thing but I could not say it in words so that others could understand me.

So I said, I will go ask my sister. I left my little apartment house and walked the few feet to my parents house and I remember saying, God bless everything. And I asked my sister my question. I said, She plays piano and is 12 years old. She will know. When I found my sister she had just woken up. I asked the question and she could not remember the answer. I felt wild and quirky for being up so early in the morning, and what were my parents thinking of me now, their son, up early, committed to writing, to being a writer, only 22, so young and beautiful, so dedicated to something, how precious.

I said I will go to the computer. I will go on the internet. I sat down at the computer and I began to research the internet about musical notations. I had my list of things to do for that next to me and I did not bring my . I had questions about certain things that I needed before I could write. I will not waste time, I said. It will all become a part of some good and distant thing, I said.

I sat at the computer listening to Cumbias Amazonicas. I enjoyed myself.

I said, I need to get my own laptop instead of using my dad's PC. I need to send things from own computer and I don't have a flash drive. So I went to my house and got my laptop plugged it in and I haven't left this chair since. I have not even left to eat. I am considering pissing on myself. I am considering trying to see if I can maybe pee into my own mouth. Then I would feel good. I would feel 'accomplished'.