I have become the cartoon of misery. Meditation only goes so far before western medicine is needed, before old Johnnie Walker comes to visit me at my desk. He does nothing but sit and keep me company, faithful friend, whilst I go about polluting the internet. I have let myself go. I think Johnnie helped with that, for better or worse. I bid him goodnight at my bedside, faithful friend, knowing that I'll not want him there in the morning.

I have become something wasted. Old pill packets pile on the side, ailments beyond cure or at least, beyond care. Hats scatter the room, never to be worn but optional costumes for future selves. Change collects in big proportions in a coffee mug, left to waste in rust as another day passes in daily interviews with the mirror and no plans. It's crazy, I know, spurning vital energy in not exerting any of it all.

I have become the morning after. Eyes buzzed with new light, temples now ruins of Dionysus, I search for the window of perception. Roman blinds flirt truth in waves of indeterminable information and so I call up old Johnnie to help me understand things again. He flavours ice with half-truths and old, old cravings. I dial in old numbers, old, old, old, until I feel new again, once I realise they can't talk to me anymore. I have become the teenage dream realised as I take to independent waste and whiskey slur, long-shot attempts at fame and periods of silence with the family.

I have become the cartoon of misery with no audience. I can live with that.