Inside and Outside

Inside, the walls make me feel crowded. I bump into them sometimes. I bump into furniture. Everything seems crowded. The doors seem useless and pointless. The fitted sheets are thrown into a bag because I can't fold them perfectly. There's stuff, little stuff of everything and nothing, everywhere like they are all homeless. Like nothing here has a real home, or a real place to belong. Just thrown in like they don't matter. The sound of the howling air conditioner is nonstop, my best friend and my worst enemy. It howls louder than a wolf, a song of "you need me, but you hate me" and the water drops say "You'd rather be swimming" in a mocking way. The floor, white tile, I sweep almost daily, swiffer or mop, it doesn't matter. It's pointless because the clean look doesn't even last one day. Not even one full 24 hour period. There's always something on the floor to make it look dirty, especially the crawling roaches that even the cat ignores. There is no smell. No smell from good cooking, or insence burning, or a fire in the fireplace, or fresh laundry from all the clothes I've folded. No smell at all, not even from the cigarettes I smoke. It's stale and cold like a hospital. Intruders have attacked, the roaches, the bees, the dirt. It's a constant territorial battle that I have to fight when nothing seems mine at all. Nothing but the chairs that I save out of the dumpster, that I sit it too long --- alone listening to the howling air conditioner --- and talking to the robots online. My legs turning into ice that feels like their going to crack into shards.

So I go for a little walk to the store. See people. Smile. Make a joke, Talk. Feel normal for about 4 minutes. Or I sit outside in the backyard, the garden and talk to the flowers, plants, birds, cat, anything there, and I don't feel normal, but I don't care.

Outside, the mosquitos and humidity want to kill me. Suck my blood, leave welts on my flesh, and suffocate me. The sun and the rain are apathetic. They have no compassion either way. Only a clear night full of stars offers mercy. The flowers giggle until the rain pounds them down. The plants observe like stoic witnesses. The grass strives to grow regardless of the struggle on the sandy desert plain. The hammock is soaked and can not dry with nonstop rain. There is no smell. No flowers have a scent here, the bees and mosquitos don't have a scent, the cat doesn't have a scent, only what's between my legs has a scent. My nose thinks everything is fake except what's between my legs.