deal with it

he told her he’d be right back.
he didn’t grab a coat.
he walked on the sidewalk.
he saw an ant.
he pointed down at the ant, and said, ‘don’t piss me off.’
he walked into a hospital.
he stood in front of an elevator.
he climbed three flights of stairs.
he began to crawl.
he crawled up into a hallway on the seventh floor.
he climbed into the bed of a terminally ill patient.
he thought it would be nice if his name was john.
he held ‘john’ tight.
he told ‘john’ he felt beautiful.
he told ‘john’ that he was beautiful.
he pulled the sheets over his head and hid from ‘john’.
he walked to the window and threw himself out of it.
he felt like an elevator.
he walked by a store and stopped in front of the dark store display.
he stared at a mannequin.
he touched the pane of glass that separated them.
‘we are alone.’
he didn’t make eye contact with the mannequin, as his greasy hand slid down the glass.
‘we are alone.’
he smudged the glass with a trail of intimacy..
he was face down in front of the mannequin.
‘I am alone.’
he looked for the ocean.
he couldn’t find it.
as he stood up, he reached out to the night.
he touched the dark.
he wanted to be close to the nothing.
he asked the nothing what it’s problem was.
‘just deal with it.’
he walked up to his front door.
he looked at a pile of dead leaves under a tree in his yard, and asked, ‘are you
happy now?’
he opened the door.
he didn’t have to take his coat off.
he climbed back into bed.
she said, ‘I love you.’
he said, ‘yea.’