Joe has a routine. Everyday he wakes up at six o'clock--p.m. He goes to bed at 7 a.m. This allows for 8 hours of healthy sleep, followed by an abrupt awakening, a long string of thoughts about the pains of physically lifting the covers off his tensed up torso and departing his bed; these vicious thoughts are followed by a calm period of soothing, dream-like thoughts--and then three more hours of sleep.

After his 11 hour slumber, Joe usually gets up, picks up his 159.99 dollar guitar, tunes it--not by ear--plays 2-3 or 2-4 notes and then puts it down. Joe then feels shame, mountains and rivers, and valleys of shame. Shame that defies all things cliches could say about shame. His thoughts change in content, but keep their guilty consistency in essence. He walks to the bathroom, brushes his teeth, feeds the cat, picks up the newspaper, puts the newspaper down, reads half of a politically charged article, feels outraged, remembers that he was feeling guilty for the last 30 minutes, starts feeling guilty for being outraged, drinks his coffee, and starts feeling anxious.

Joe takes a nap. Joe wakes up. He goes back to sleep. He wakes up, watches Netflix, goes back to sleep. What time is it? Joe works tomorrow. Ah, fuck it.

Joe calls in sick. "I think it's the stomach bug that's going around. I threw up this morning." He thinks his manager buys it (she doesn't, but pretends like she did). Joe boys ice cream; he puts it on his credit card.

Two scoops.

Three scoops--two flavors.

Joe is tall, dark, and unhandsome. He hasn't had sex in 7 months. He thinks it's his looks, but it's not. Joe has a subtle lisp that most people don't notice, but he thinks they do, so he wastes energy trying to hide it. He doesn't have sex because he won't ask questions. His sexual innuendo is too obvious. His sexual objectification of women is transparent. He doesn't know why he's unhappy, but thinks it's because of the sex--Joe goes back to sleep.

Life's all about not having your cake--because you ate it. It's about talking about what life's all about, and preaching that shit to others. Life's for the taking, so stream-roll your ass over the peasants in the way, and graciously call them 'kind people' once you've kicked your way to the top. It takes a lot of hubris to try and change the world, and just as much to destroy it; no one's safe, babe.

It's hard to say what it means to do well. I spend most of my days sleeping because when you wake up from a dream, you just know it's not real; I can't wake up from this.

We're all looking for the same thing, and it hurts to see that no one has awaken from this dream.

"I was wrong about you."

"What?"

"I had it all built up in my head--I saw white horses and big bubble letters made of clouds, spelled out 'Love'." She looked down at her shoes, then her tiny limp hands.

"Or maybe you were wrong about love," he said.

"Yes. We all were," her eyes briefly touched his face then fixated on his stained shirt. "And you too. I thought you were going to take me away."

"From this?!" He said. "Only death can do that."

"I know, and that's why I hadn't known love," she said, her hands finding new strength to grab the brown leather luggage she hadn't lifted before, "but now I do."

As tears dropped to the kitchen marble top, dried-up ink gone wet again on fresh white cards: 'Save the Date.'