My mind resembles something like a rabid VCR—baring its teeth, foaming, unapologetic, at the mouth, rewinding and replaying and repeating all of the small cuts of two people I swear I used to know and love. Rerunning a patchwork reel of the scenes I can stand to remember— (which is all of them when I’m feeling particularly masochistic). Rhythmic static travels from top to bottom of my mind’s eye— a familiar flaw, cracking and popping as the picture struggles to come clear. I try to stop it—all of it. Rip plug from outlet— throw this snarling archaic beast against some unsuspecting wall. But it’s made in the good ol’ US of A and runs on something a bit more complicated than any energy they can send me a bill for. So I'm stuck in this cyclical hell, where there is no fresh air, and the only oxygen I can get has to be ****** through a barely functioning dollar store crazy straw. And, really, my only anger is directed at Dante for not including this part in his little ditty about the Inferno. I swear I’d take trying and failing to escape a river of boiling blood over whatever it is that causes me to create a dramatic VCR metaphor any day.