I Guess My Writing Has Changed As

That Morning She Pours Teacher's Over My Belly And Licks It Off. That Afternoon She Tries To Jump Out The Window.

I've Crossed Some Kind Of Invisible Line. I Feel As If I've Come To A Place I Never Thought I'd Have To Come To. And I Don't Know How I Got Here. It's A Strange Place. It's A Place Where A Little Harmless Dreaming And Then Some Sleepy, Early-morning Talk Has Led Me Into Considerations Of Death And Annihilation.

It's Strange. You Never Start Out Life With The Intention Of Becoming A Bankrupt Or An Alcoholic Or A Cheat And A Thief. Or A Liar.

If We're Lucky, Writer And Reader Alike, We'll Finish The Last Line Or Two Of A Short Story And Then Just Sit For A Minute, Quietly. Ideally, We'll Ponder What We've Just Written Or Read; Maybe Our Hearts Or Intellects Will Have Been Moved Off The Peg Just A Little From Where They Were Before. Our Body Temperature Will Have Gone Up, Or Down, By A Degree. Then, Breathing Evenly And Steadily Once More, We'll Collect Ourselves, Writers And Readers Alike, Get Up, "created Of Warm Blood And Nerves" As A Chekhov Character Puts It, And Go On To The Next Thing: Life. Always Life.

I Could Hear My Heart Beating. I Could Hear Everyone's Heart. I Could Hear The Human Noise We Sat There Making, Not One Of Us Moving, Not Even When The Room Went Dark.