Saturday, all at once, I downed 60mg of Nifedipine and 2½mg of Lorazepam. This was my first intake of either drug in probably three months. I had felt strung out, excitable, directionless. I felt like walking the day away, as I love to do with weekends. But this time I knew I should not. I had to sit down, learn to breathe again, and calm myself.

I walked anyway. Walking is one of my passions. But I felt wrong. Body was off. Mind was somewhere between this body and some other one. I don’t know where.

Sitting on a bus shelter bench I downed those pills, looking up, of course. The skies were blue, the clouds puffy, this on a day we’d been promised torrential rain and even flooding.

I sat at the bus stop, deciding if I should take these pills or let them wait. I had time, time for the anxiety to pass on its own. It always does, until it does not. But I did it. I don’t know why. There is nothing for me to look forward to, no responsibilities.

I know how to waste a day. At least that’s what I used to think. I’m starting to think days know how to waste me. Alignments transpire, strategies discover where synergies behoove each other, coördinating in improvisatory ways to feed the machines of other entities’ cravings and amusements.

I hear myself thinking and there is nothing there. Just empty noise.

Sleep should be no adventure tonight. Or maybe that is exactly what it will be. Too busy wasting time to walk more than a couple of miles. Without a good walk sleep could take longer to let me in.

I liked sitting in the churchyard today. I landed there after all the tables at the park were taken. I needed a table if I wanted to type. As I did. One table was available at the park. It was surrounded by winos.

I’ve been at that churchyard many times. Something about today felt different. Different type of people from what I assume to be neighborhood churchgoers.

…

Reading messenger chats with an ex from what seemed like forever ago until I started reading this again. Forever ago feels it could still be happening, or is happening in some spiritual or transcendental space. She was so sweet, so funny, and so horny.

When she was not here we’d be gabbing on past 2am, but never on the phone. We both hated the phone. I think our only phone conversation, all of one minute, occurred 10 minutes before we first met in person. She called to say the subway was a mess. She might be late. She arrived on time.

Via messenger those late nights into early mornings we’d go over detailed play-by plays of our last encounters. She would laugh about how obvious it was that I loved her hair, her long, long, luscious hair. I said I loved any part of her, “As long as it is you.”

Did I really ever talk like that?

I did. I remember. I never forgot. I hope she never forgets the way we talked, too.

…