i slip into an ugly shallow sleep haunted by steel talons gripping my flesh. i wake up and excrete violently. the smell makes me heave involuntarily; like i ate rotting meat, threw it up into a jar, then left it in a cupboard for a week before opening it just to see.

i get back into bed and am assailed by a curious overwhelming insistence of guilt and shame. a film runs through my brain of women from the past and i see in vivid detail how i wronged each of them. it feels like a bogus journey of going into different doors in hell only each one contains a brutal scene with a different ex-girlfriend.

"but that never happened !" i startle myself awake with the realization that i'm dreaming and most of these things are imagined. i eat a fistful of tylenol and wash it down with ginger ale and remember being at the seven eleven at some point in the last few hours. getting there and back i do not remember. i also find a package of fruit mentos and eat them ravenously. my fridge is absolutely stocked with ginger ale and gatorade. i imagine that i'm a helpful fairy to myself and giggle my way the short trip to stupid even though it makes my stomach feel like it's getting needled by stomach goblins.