Time

covered in feces

I am living in the present, which is now. The seconds that pass become distant, dirty memories. Moments that are born to rot. They emerge with a burning vitality, then wither in an instant, the heat turning to a frigid sludge that grudgingly settles back into the mire. Watching them die makes me crave destruction, or to be suffocated. It’s fleeting, but it ripples through the veins in my arms before dissipating at my neck. I knead the tight skin and watch another minute pass on the clock. I bear my teeth into a steady grimace. The second hand twitches derisively, skimming each numeral before completing its futile cycle. It looks pathetic; a tacky gyration of uncouth hips. Each time it overlaps with the stoic needle of the hour, I imagine fires starting.

The earth has gone stale. All I smell outside is the spoiled stench of pride. I can taste the acrid air, thick with the shit spewing from the open mouths of everyone around me. They don’t seem to notice when it slides down their chin and stains their shirts, or they’re fine with the extra washing. Their talk sprays my face and leaves my clothes coated in ego, and I go home each night caked in a rancid identity I’m unsure of. No matter how much I scrub at my skin, I often find myself mouthing their sentiments like a drunk repeats scripture. I must talk in my sleep. When I wake up, my bed is covered in feces.

I am different. Special, I think. I knew it when my mother tried to drown me in the pool, and when girls would take their clothes off for me in middle school. A boy once told me I felt so strange because I was an alien, and that I should be on my real planet since I was so miserable here. We used to talk about art we liked until he croaked. I remember standing at the edge of a cliff pouring out a bottle of soda for him, but instead of thinking about my friend, I thought about how my ex used to jerk off over cliffsides to watch his semen plummet. The memory arrived so clearly that I could smell his spunk in the air and see the sharp lines of his face in the stream of bubbling soda. For a fleeting moment, I wanted to jump, but figured that was just what everyone thought when they were up so high.

My thoughts as of late have been melancholy. I’ve been revisiting the past, padding through drafty hallways of hazy memories in an attempt to find some warmth. Like a heroin addict, I tie off my arm and pump simpler times into my bloodstream until I’m silly with sentimentality. Flashing, swollen lights reminding me of it all, distorted voices recounting my achievements and indiscretions at once. An old professor tasked us with creating a memoir to present at the end of the semester, but I couldn’t stand her voice. I stopped after three weeks and didn’t submit one, but considered how I would start if I had a gun to my head: My name is Andrew. I am shit.

I look at the clock. The second hand continues its senseless circuit. The need to shatter the thing, to rip those notches off and chew on them like some lobotomized mouse, is overwhelming. But I can’t, because my legs won’t move. They’re locked in place, along with the rest of me, and all I can do is let out huffs of air as I’m mocked. My mouth hurts from grinding my molars, and my knuckles are near white when I finally pivot my eyes away from that time bomb. When I unfurl my fingers, the present interlaces them, and I wonder which sensation is worse. I try to remember what my dead friend looked like. All I see is a frog.