bus ride over and Ciara is gone said goodbye and directed toward downtown five dollars in hand and hungry Eyes getting blurrier all the time and having trouble swallowing so drool and tears always face a mess of fluids Stomach churning pain and empty wanting only meat and maybe liquids sugar’s good too Stopping try to talk can’t even spit out “burger” have to moan and grunt until they get it right my fingers still work and mouth and legs but I’m sure I couldn’t drive or type Seeing something superimposed on sight something tall and like a volcano maybe reminding me of Richard Dreyfus and I’m wondering if this is all a dream except I usually wake up by now and I haven’t been able to even sleep and maybe I don’t think I’ll ever want to sleep again just eat instead of sleep Knew a girl who said she never ate after eleven instead she’d go to bed because she could just sleep instead when she was hungry That never worked for me because I can’t sleep when my belly pangs and then the nightmares come like this walking shuffling leaking nightmare of a roadtrip that I didn’t even know I was on Remembering is harder all the time but Tim is someone that I know and I think I should tell him where I am but that’s going to be hard since I can’t dial a phone or talk Need to find a nice person someone like a priest or social worker who might take me in and help me but I don’t think any of them live in this town and all the streets are named for letters and not numbers so I’m getting confused since I can’t remember the alphabet So sure I couldn’t type right now but Tim was always on the computer anyway and I’ve never really written a whole paper by myself Beer seems like it would be good but I don’t think I could take another layer of buzz and blearyness on top of all this already Lights are blurry at night and I sit a lot on benches until buses come because I have trouble finding food or rather money to use to buy it Spending lots of time in alleys and climbing into dumpsters foraging food and just standing among the junk and boxes so I don’t feel like I should walk around so much Rocky Mountains might be calling and I think I ought to get back on the road or on the bus and head West always West toward the mountain volcano shaving cream I hope Ciara finds what she’s looking for in the Grand Canyon on a burro or a pony or a hippie boy she likes who isn’t evil but patient yet creative and not sad Ethan needs to feel this he would probably sleep better with less dreams but then maybe I’m in laundry again