I was listening to something inside myself. I didn’t know what it was.
I wasn’t going to listen to a trained listener to tell me what was what and not have me have my say.
The saturnine man said hello and went to his post. I left without spending myself. He left his post.
The tall old lady on Sandy blvd in a moo moo screamed NO NO NO. She looked like my divorce lawyer.
Who cares what you dress like no one is paying attention, I said to myself.
I think about Amy when I date fifty year old women with large breasts, hematoma and white skin cancer scars. It’s strange to be in love with someone I broke up with, hopefully it will translate to someone else.
It was a late rainy and foggy Portland night. I missed Amy. I fell asleep in her arms.
When I woke in the bleary grey morning Amy wasn’t in the bed. She was sitting in a chair
in the living room. The tv was on mute her mouth and eyes were open.
I turned the tv on to listen to another terrorist report abroad.
I don’t care for what goes on in the Ukraine, I said. It is like a mental illness that needs to be
cauterized by a third rate analyst. Actually a generic anti depressant will do.
Amy said nothing. I pushed her slumped head back. She and the chair fell over. Her mouth closed and her bloodshot eyes remained open.
Trish was with her awful boyfriend and his sensitive phlegmatic
friend who wanted to be with him romantically. Trish didn’t have the tacky blond hair. Her hair was its natural mousy brown.
I looked at the Trish with her mousy brown hair and reminded myself to be careful not to have lorn see me looking her way not wanting to make her jealous.
Lorn has the same green winter hat that I have. She hopes to lose it to someone she likes. She never hangs on to her winter hats for long.
Trish I need your help, I said. Amy died. She’s in my living room.
What said Trish. What the fuck. What did you do to her.
I don’t know, I said.
So you did do something, Trish said.
I don’t think so I said. I felt like I was traveling in space from one wormhole to another wormhole.
What are you thinking about, Trish said.
I’m thinking about Mark Strand’s collages I saw in the New Yorker, I said.
Did he study with Joseph Albers, Trish asked.
I have to do something with Amy’s body, I said.
What are you thinking Trish said. I thought you were done with her weeks ago.
I was, I said. I was using her until I was more solid with Lorn.
You don’t ever talk to Lorn, Trish said.
I see her every day for coffee, I said.
She doesn’t even know you exist, Trish said.
I feel something, I said.
You need to call the authorities, Trish said.
They scare me I said. They are looking for Y. I haven’t heard from him in awhile. He used to stalk me on the internet. I don’t even know if he is alive.
How could Amy die on me. What went wrong? Was it something I said? She never said that she had bad health. She was neurotic high strung and confused. It isn’t my fault. I can’t answer for her death. She is the only one. She wanted to free the chimpanzees from the science lab.
The handsome scientist she had a crush on at her work ignominiously overdosed Mira the Orangutan on an anti Aids drug. Now she will never have the chance to save them.
I am lonely beyond lonely. I want to forget about myself so I don’t feel lonely but
my left eye that moves from left to right reminds me that I’m alive and lonely. I miss Amy. I want to kiss her pretty fifty year old bunghole. I keep my right eye shut to help me read. I don’t know why I think it helps, it probably doesn’t do anything.
Is hypochondria paranoia, I said to myself.
I looked through my door to see my neighbors door to see if they were awake at
this late hour. The lights were off so they must be asleep in their bedroom that is opposite my bedroom. I can hear their dog breathing heavily in the early morning. I’m not sure where in the apartment they are fucking. They used to fuck assiduously in the bedroom.
I cried raptly last night over my wife. I texted her about our divorce. I begged her not to go through with it, at least not in the manner she intends to do it. She has been playing tennis. She has an obsession with it. I have a feeling that she left me for tennis. I predict she will marry someone in the tennis world she can travel widely with to go see tournaments.
I call my wife my ex wife when I see other women but to myself I call her my wife. I think about work but I can see myself staying awake in a dead end job. I think about teaching but there are no teaching jobs and the ones that are available won’t be given to me.
When I saw the fifty year old CIA agent last night I was hopeful.  She has black hair and still has a good jaw line. She has the hoarse laugh of a chain smoker. Her father used to be an FBI agent. She asked me questions about how I manage my money. I said I owned apartment buildings in JC. It felt good to lie.
I have quit the sex line. The bank blocks my card for suspicious activity every time I call
it. The helpful employee with an underbite at the bank informed me that the sex line charges me three times unsuccessfully even though the first charge went through.
Amy isn’t part of my history anymore. However, she will read it, as she obsessively did when we were seeing one another. She liked to torment herself. And I didn’t disappoint her. She misunderstood my text in her anxiety for happiness.