Uppers and Downers

Tuesday

For the first time in a long time, I come home drunk. I climb into bed with a bag of crackers and read the news. More Donald-fucking-Trump. Still, sleeping alone never felt so good. Worried that the alcohol might keep me up, I take a bromozepam, play a Twin Peaks podcast, and pass out. 

Wednesday

He's asking about my childhood traumas. I'm groping to find one. (That time I fell over rollerblading?) We talk some more shit, bash a few more lines. Sunlight is starting to creep in through the ass crack in the blinds: it's morning. He kisses me and a softness rolls over. I find a bromozepam to bring me down. We fall asleep.

Thursday

Plans change and we decide to stay in. I'm reading him Jeffery Dahmer's wickedly gruesome biography aloud. I tell him I won't be able to go home alone and sleep after reading about 17 murders. He says that's fine. I'm wincing with cruel interest and he's wide-eyed and fascinated, eating potato chips and dropping them all over the bed. We laugh until our eyes are heavy; until we fall asleep in a warm, blanketed silence.

Friday

We have some sort of half-argument and things get weird: the air is heavy and the mood is shitty. And yet, somehow, in that slurred blur, we fight it out and make things okay. He falls asleep but I'm still angry with myself and angry with him, so I smash a bromozepam, gulping it down with a glass of warm water. I wake up in the morning and he's holding me. 

Saturday 

We finish off the blow and stand on the terrace smoking and watching a swarm of bald men pour in and out the strip club downstairs. It's a battle of banter. (I win.) We fall into bed hiccuping with giggles. This time I don't need anything but him — I just roll over and he catches me. 

Excerpts from Conversations About Paradise.