Nuclear holocaust.
Empty houses.

Irradiated dust on the shelves.

People's silhouettes on the sidewalk.
No detectives.

"Sir?"

Then it all comes flooding back. We're still here. Right.

Is that any way to speak to your mother?

I scan the ground beef. Can haz. 2 peppers. Yep, can haz. An onion, American cheese. Mhm. I swipe my food stamps card. Kitty lives to see another day.

Enjoyment. Enjoy it enough. Hope you have a nice day! I hope Jesus has a nice day too.

But what if he doesn't? What if simply going forward draws the utmost hatred and ire? What if I tell you I can't change the story? At some junctures, you'd go into a rage. Or maybe scoff at me.

Just look at me, trying to excuse myself! I don't even know what's going to ha... ah, there's that gift again.

So I walk into paved paradise and there's the big yellow sun.

And there are rusted cars. One of them with its windows cracked. I peer inside and see they were reading a book by a really clever, super famous writer.

I guess I'm the most clever writer in the universe. But that doesn't change how ******* stupid I am. I start the only car in the known universe that still runs.

I'm passing empty swingsets. Lawn mowers in the front yard. The final reprieve of every restaurant, motel, and living room couch.

Vacancy, no vacancy. What's the difference?

Honk!

God, I wish you would stop doing that! Or no, I love it. The company of another person. The engineering of roads. The engineering of the horn. I take a second to apologize to you in my head and start thinking about Indian people honking at each other. When everyone was here.

My phone rings, and now I'm back to being upset. I wish you would just stop doing that. Take me off your list. I don't want any. You'll hate me. I won't enjoy it enough to say it was all worth it. I'm a predator seeking prey. You're allowed to just exist, but I'm not, and I understand why. I feel perverted when I try to interact with you. You have to let me in. If I think you're ugly I'm wrong. Just stop calling. The economy is terrible and the whole world is falling apart. Take me off your list. I'm the one calling you telling you to call me and it's just been causing problems.

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

...what was that?

I guess my mom's right, maybe I'm schizophrenic. But I didn't hear it. Jesus ******* christ man, read between the lines!

I don't read things. I don't find things.

Anyway, that was nothing. It was irrelevant. We have those. It's called living.

As I pull into our driveway I decide I regretted the whole holocaust thing and I fall back in love. Everything snaps back into place and all the cute corpuscles set in motion and the world and all its people come back to life. It's not as grotesque as I think it is, as long as I don't look inside myself for too long, as long as there is something else to distract myself from it.

You cuddle me and validate this little idea I have that I'm the same innocent boy I was years and years ago. That the bad things in the world aren't my fault. I write another ****** poem I don't care about and you like it once or twice and I won't bother to look at your profile because I've accepted I can't keep up with everything. That's just nature. Too prolific for its own good and always trying to spin that like it's some good deal. Oh trust me it is sometimes but what the hell, like...