Helen Rice

My loneliness feels like my soul

needs to pee but I can’t find a bathroom.

I feel abstract.

I’m an abstraction.

I disapprove of myself.

I click the mouse and I despair

staring at the computer screen

I hate myself.

Wandering aimlessly near Union Square

putting on my zip-up hoodie

felt like a preparation

for the end of my life. My CD player’s batteries

were “dead,” I could hear my breathing

and it sounded scary, like I had left

my earphones in, which I had, I had left them in.

I took them out and held them sadly

and put them in my pocket.

It is time to explain myself.

I feel sad like a friendless unicorn baby licking an unopened package of sour patch kids.

In bed at 4 p.m.

I held my pillow

and thought “oh well”

in regards to my entire life.

Running across the street

to get to my apartment

I arrived at my apartment.

My key going into the lock

made noises I couldn’t hear.

I was listening to music through earphones.

Mixed CD…the key wasn’t working,

it was the wrong key. I felt about to be robbed

I looked behind me. Three obese women. A 24-hour deli.

In bed the next afternoon I thought I heard a very loud noise

from very far away

that sounded like I was dying,

but it was something else, a roommate

in the bathroom.

I stood in the kitchen staring out the window

at 5 p.m, it was raining. I had no obligations

for the next four days. “I don’t want anymore obligations

or responsibilities,” I thought with some confusion.

Then I thought about my smoothie.

It was below me somewhere. I was holding it

at waist-level. Across the street someone

was screaming a little. Something behind my eyes

was looking at the world

with more interest than I

and angry at me about that.

Don’t be angry at me, I thought sadly.

#Reader of Depressing Books