I don’t live. I coast. I skim. I slip and slide and black out at times. When I go deep it’s for the sake of ugliness. Self-concern. I hear my anger some nights. Neighbors probably do as well. That’s unavoidable but still, it’s none of their business. People think I’m calm and cool. By appearances, yes, I can’t disagree.  But when I’m alone I let anger come. I am becoming my mother. Are not we all? What am I missing? On a train this morning I saw multiple people, all men, sleeping on the seats. Why am I not in that position? How long could I survive? Some people, with their mini-tents and mattresses, look like they sleep better than I. Is their experience that much different from anyone else’s? It is. Unhoused, as we call it now, is unsafe and symptomatic. It’s that sudden cough or sudden chest pain you should really see a doctor about. It’s the writhing, bottomless anger of someone with no grievances in life. Something is wrong about it. I woke screaming again, convinced I would remember the details of what woke me. I did not. I think there was an exact name of a woman from Pasadena. I was going to wake up later and look her up, make first contact with the news that she appeared, fully formed, in a dream that turned to a nightmare and frost. I woke hot, then quicly the body turned cold. Under the blankets, then over them, then back under until my ass starts sweating and I turn the sheets about so my body can breathe. Science says we still do not understand dreams or why it happens. Why should we? Why understand or make predictive our knowledge of an experience that cannot be truly shared. I wanted to have slept on that train overnight. Would I have been left alone? Robbed? Kidnapped? I only dwell on this because something about entering that train car today made it feel I’d entered a private gathering, or a communal living space. One woman looked me over, I detected it was evaluatory. She wanted to see what potential problem there might be with her next unknown visitor. Did I look dangerous or derelict? I don’t think so but sartorial assumptions can be downright mean and demeaning. I wore a shirt yesterday that, to me, looked perfectly fine as it hung in the closet. But actually wearing it I felt, when I happened to spot myself in a mirror, that I looked poor, and classless. I am poor, and I’ll reserve judgment on myself for having any dignity or style anymore. But some days I look like a fucking slob, while inside is no such person. I am actually nearing a point where I might be able to stop calling myself poor. I am nearing debtlessness again. A number of poorly planned purchases and habits, most of them involving the woman I dated last year (not blaming her) put me into credit card debt for the first time since just before 9/11, when I remember that day I paid it all off, everything at once, credit cards, student loans; these suffocating debts seemingly bestowed as some kind of birthright were finally gone and I had never felt wealthier. I stayed debt-free for over 20 years, and then I took this job (another central contributor to going broke) but I think the end of debt is, for now, within reach.