Alone
Cold room
Turn up the heat
Done
Nothing to say
So I’ll say nothing
Compelled to say something.

I went to the movies today with my mother. I made a concerted effort to be a man, a successful grown up who was spending an afternoon with his mother. The auspices of being an adult make it so easy to do something like go to movies with your mother. As a kid, my usual part, it’s much more difficult.

It doesn’t have to be true, or represent my life really in any way, it’s just a role that I’ve learned. Perhaps I should’ve learned some time ago. I finally feel confident in this role. I don’t miss any cues, say what I’m supposed to say, be funny—but not too funny. I just imagine how I’ll be doing this act for the rest of my life. Typecast like any shitty actor.

I don’t know of any other way to be more pretentious. I guess I just want you to see what I am right now. This blob of flesh sitting in front of his monitor, with two white-noise fans running, unable to sleep at four in the morning. Pounding on the keyboard at 40+ words per, with improper self-taught finger placement, but still faster than some. Slouched because I’ve given up. Not entirely, just tonight. Couldn’t sleep, so I gave up trying. Arose got a glass of water, increased the heat, and proceeded to pound with mostly the wrong fingers.

But the question I cannot avoid, and frankly I find delicious, like this water is: are you actually reading this. Even now as Word capitalizes my letters starting sentences, I imagine in a fantasizing manner: where in the future are you reading? What year is it, do you even still record years? Or run on sentences? Computers, cars, television, do they exist? Do you exist? Only if I let you. For if I were not writing this, you wouldn’t be reading it. And if you weren’t reading it, (here comes the then) then you wouldn’t exist. You exist because I created you. I created you for the sole purpose (cliché) of reading this. You understand my asides, without me having to explain what an aside is. On other nights, my creation needs a sentence or two. Other times I must forsake (there’s that word again) the asides entirely. Next time I write something, I will create another person similar to you, but different. How can I continue to write under these circumstances and still consider myself sane?

That last question devoured my inspiration and replaced it with the same familiar nothingness that began this entry.