This Game

I am tired of this game. My headache tastes like alkaline. It’s one in the morning and I am still in my pajamas from last night. I am picking at my skin. I see blood. Neurotic. The cat is curled like a thumbprint on my bed - black, intricate, and still. I see him breathing softly. His small belly rises and falls. There is a general lack of inflection. Decisions have to be made. Coke or Pepsi? McDonald’s or Burger King? Vanilla or chocolate? Mary-Kate or Ashley? VHS or DVD? I get the point. I sail through the variables into a cliché with the logic of a computer program. There are always two possibilities. One, rejected, the other embraced. Never look back. Nike or Adidas? Boy or girl? The truth is that none of these things are equal opposing forces. Apples and oranges simply buckle under the weight of my desire to have them meet head to head in some sort of cosmic battle. It is my nature. Crest or Colgate? When I was in elementary school I discovered that one could actually write (with a pencil) upon the surface of an eraser. It totally blew my mind. Rain or shine? Brittany or Christina? I had a dream that a large, white wolf descended a foggish-blue hill and nuzzled my hand. Jesus or Satan? The notion of infinity, spatially or conceptually, awakened a terrible fear of vomiting in my early childhood. Beef or chicken? I stopped eating animals after I watched a cow’s throat get slit from ear to ear, then hang upside down, bleeding to death, licking the air for anything.