Nothing

you're swimming through the haze of nothing and sometimes you think you're nothing. you think the world is nothing because the world is you, isn't it? the world reflects your problems and the window looking back at you has nothing in it because it is dirty and because there is nothing to reflect because the chair you sit in is empty because you are nothing and nobody and the noise and the dim light goes right through you. ordinarily it would stop and bounce off of sweaty skin but you're a puff of air and it goes right through you. and you've accepted your nothingness and acceptied that the only thing that exists right now is the bottle that lays in front of you and your only problem is that it's empty.

you know what to do now. you have to call for it to be filled but because you are nothing you cannot speak. your vocal cords and your mouth and your lips are nothing, because the world is nothing, and because you are nothing.

but you have to call for a refill. you have to swill the drink around your mouth. you have to look at the label, and try to make sense of the fancy letters, and wonder why your fingers feel heavy, and realize it's because you have no fingers. you've never seen nothing, because you've never seen, because nothing doesn't have eyes and you need eyes to see. some people see with senses, you remember, but that won't work either. nothing has nothing, and their nonexistent children have nothing, and the cycle of nothingness goes around and around and your english teacher called it a vicious cycle but she's dead, and you might be too, because you don't know if nothing can die but what you do know is that you need a refill and you need to call out but you're childishly stubborn and you don't want to. but you have to.

you have to do a lot of things but you're here, being nothing, doing nothing, watching the world pile up dung at your front door and letting your shovel, the thing that could save you, collect dust. because it's too hard, and you are used to being nothing, and to be something would require you to do something. and all you want to do is drown yourself in drink.

you used to wonder if drowning in twelve ounces of drink was possible but you've experienced it now. you don't drown immediately, you go in by degrees. first your feet. they tingle as you dip them into the darkness, but you tell yourself it's good and you ignore it. and then your ankles go in, and then your shins, and then your thighs, and then you're underneath the water and everything is heavy and brown and you float there and you tell yourself that you're the happiest person on earth.

but you can't drown, not right now, because your thoughts wander and you need to pull them back to the problem at hand- you need more water to drown in. it's like your old, creaky bathtub at home. the water drains, slowly, and soon you can't drown anymore, so your forehead and knees are protruding and goosebumps raise on your exposed skin and it's cold and unsatisfying and all you want to do is fully submerse yourself. the alcohol is your bathtub, and you want to be submersed.

so you shout something. your lips part, and your vision swims, and you make noise, like the cavemen of old. you're doing it how the cavemen did it. they didn't have bills, or kids that they had to take care of. they had no responsibilities and they spent their entire life submerged. you're going to be like them because not being like them is newfangled and nasty because you tell yourself you like drowning or you just ignore the drowning but subconsciously revel in it because drowning is good, you say, but you can't believe it because you were raised to walk on land, not drown. but you can't focus on that right now, because the shout is leaving your mouth, and with it comes a whiff of beer-smelling air, and no one will like that but no one will like you, because you cannot like nothing.

and your shout works, and the cavemen rejoice, because a blurry wad of something bartender-ish comes and takes your bottle away and the blob brings you a new one and you try to uncap it for a while but then you realize that it's already uncapped. you want to thank the blob of bartender for saving your life and letting you drown but it's gone so you just down the bottle and let your unspoken 'thank you' drift across your head.

and as you drink your forehead and your knees go down under the warm water and the bathtub fills back up. and the pile of dung outside your door vanishes, and the empty seat you're in is the happy kind of empty. and you've drowned.

and you get to do what you've wanted to. you squint at the fancy letters and you watch as they blur and the voices and the noise tune out because your head is going down like the titanic did in the movie that the kids made you watch. it's going onto something like arms, and that makes you keep your eyes open for one more second, because if you have arms, your seat isn't empty. and you might be drowning, but you're drowning as you, and when you become something the waves will recede and it might be cold, but someone will throw you a threadbare towel. and you'll dry yourself off, and you'll put on clothes that aren't stained with kid vomit and drink, and you'll go into your narrow hallway, and you'll be the good kind of cold. and the cavemen will wish you well with their incomprehensible noises, and the seat will be happy once you've left it, because the seat needs somebody else to occupy it. someone who won't drown like you do.

and your eyes flop shut, and usually you don't like passing out because it ends the peaceful floating time, but you're breaking the surface, and you're gasping, and your wet hair is cascading down your back and it feels good, because you're passing out as someone who has an empty bottle and brand-new hope.