Winter nights in Maryland.  The mist sticks to my jacket.  Moistens my beard.  Saturates my skin.

This is what I feel as I saunter down to the bar.  Stepping over puddles and past open garage doors.  By men shouting to each other for wrenches or pliers or whatever, under and around elevated cars.  

I make my way.  Along the sidewalk.  In darkness.  Alone.

But the bartender lulls me.  With her pony tail and plaid shirt.  With her ease of moving up and down the bar. Handling glassware and beer taps.  Beer patrons and bar guests.  With her cravings for a cigarette, which she verbalizes only to me. 

She permeates.  Gets in.

And I feel vulnerable.  For one Tuesday night, I feel open.  Exposed. Naked.

And it feels good.

Even after she leaves me for the cold

and some smoke.  I know she'll return.  And I know it'll make me smile.  Make me what I want to be.

What is that?

12/22

I wander over to the bar two blocks down.  I make my way there.  End up inside.  On a stool.  Pint in hand.  Sorrows on shoulders.  Blending into the shadows.

This is where I'm drawn on Monday nights in December.  Specifically the Monday before Christmas.  Specifically so.  Here I am.

And I think of the books, stacked on the table in my apartment, that I could be reading.  That I could be exploring and knowing.  With which I could be broadening my being.

But I choose beer instead.  I choose beer because beer is easy company.  Beer doesn't need to be entertained. Beer doesn't need much attention or cognitive assertion on your part.  It only needs a mouth.  A mouth and maybe a few organs and a body to help achieve the goal.  And I'm always striving for that goal.

To transcend.  Cast beyond.  Float above.  Get out.

I need that.  And though the books promise the same result.  Promise that joyful plain of ecstasy.  That heightened understanding of life and love and consciousness, I avoid them.

I avoid them because they require more effort and energy than I have at the end of the day.  More persistence and resolution.  More than I have.

But beer has the fuel to get me to the front stoop of where I always wanted to be.  To plow me past all the problems and plights I disdain.  Just never enough to push open that damn door and shut em out for good.

But I still put my faith in the bar.  And show up there at ten at the night.  And down a few to stumble home.  Instead of winding down with some tea and a shower.  Lying with my cat and allowing a novel to expand my existence across the imagination of another soul.

Right.

12/17

The nights get to me.  Like they always have.  The majesty about them.  The towering buildings, warming the dark with their soft glow.  The hum of car engines idling at traffic lights.  The lone souls smoking cigarettes on sidewalks.  

I'm captivated.  Transfixed.  Elated.

How can I turn away?

And maybe this fascination started in DC.  At the window of my girlfriend's dorm room.  When I couldn't sleep and I'd sit up at the edge of her bed.  Lean my head against the wall and stare out at the nearest intersection.  Watch the green, yellow, red.  The flash from the occasional siren.  Sit there for hours. 

Sometimes she'd wake and ask what's wrong?  Hold her knees and peer into me.  What's wrong?  But I wouldn't ever really acknowledge.  I wouldn't ever really respond.

I'd just want the city to take me for a little longer.  Just a little while longer.  Release me.

12/10

Body aches.  Waking is painful.  Consciousness.  It reinstates my pain.  My suffering.

But I rise from the floor as the cat bites my hand.  Demands something.  Attention.  Breakfast.  Something.

There's sunlight today, and I smile as it kisses my face.  

The clouds have been smothering me.  Coating my existence in a haze.  A thick fog to trudge through.

Last night I venture out for food.  In the drizzling rain and the sparkle of the wet city lights, I walk towards nourishment.  But as the wind attempts to steal my umbrella, as I'm passing the Thai restaurant, coming up to a bar, I lose my direction.  I pause.  Stop.  Don't move.

I look through the window.  At the figures seated on bar stools, leaning towards one another, exchanging stories of moments past.  Laughing with the help of warming spirits.  I watch the couple of folks locked into place, hunched over the bar, fixated on the television.  Pints in hand.  Worries else where.  

I stand there for a minute.  Viewing.  Observing.  Contemplating.

Then I turn back towards my apartment.  Twist my head down. Spear my umbrella into the wind.  Take long, quick strides.  

Who needs food anyway?

12/7

Where does my mind take me?  My body?  Who is in control?

My feet rest on the windowsill of my Baltimore loft.  It's cold and the cat claims the sole patch of sunlight heating the frozen floor boards.

What am I doing here?

My belongings lay scattered about the enormous room.  Backpacks and boxes lining the walls.  Piles of

clothes and kitchen-ware.  Mounds of stuff.  Junk.  Accumulated rubbish.

Such is my life.

So I do the things I feel I should.  I shower.  I shave.  I brush.  I do laundry.  I sweep.  I organize.  Or at least make an attempt.

I make coffee and sip at it as I stare out the window.  As I view the students shuffling into the university across the street.  Take in the shrinking puddles of water from last night's rain, atop the rooftops of the warehouses adjacent to my building.  Admire the chirping birds on my fire escape, before they shoot off to wherever.

Then it's only ten in the morning.  It's only ten and I've exhausted my methods of killing time.  A slew of hours stand before me.  A day that beckons me to dance.  But I'd rather not.  

I'd rather sign out and came back later.  Do this thing part time.  Two or three days a week.  Nothing too consuming.

At least it's only temporary though.  I know this.  I tell myself this.  Even if that time stretches before me like a welcoming eternity, I know better.  I know there's an end.  A drop.  A darkness.

I just can't seem to find it.

12/6

I survive in a state of shivers.  Unceasing shakes.  Steadfast shudders.

The cracks in the windows.  The holes in the floor.  The absence of heat.  Water.  

Help.

I'm not going to make it.

The cat eagerly crawls beneath the covers with me.  Something he's never done.

Something no one has ever done.

We steal warmth from each other though.  I squeeze him with my legs to extract as I much as I can.  And he purrs and burrows.  I'm not sure who benefits more.

My dreams are cloudy and fragmented.  I can't keep hold of them.  How much sleep am I actually obtaining?

My nose is frozen.  Best not to think about it.

When there's a hint of sunlight I bolt up.  Begin moving.  Pacing the room. Bending down.  Standing up.  Expending energy.  Generating heat.

But it looks like rain today.  Which means I'm on my own.  No assistance.  No relief.  Just me and the cat.  Fumbling through another day.

I have low expectations.

12/3

Eye lids won't open today.

The drive to Baltimore is surreal.  The clouds and reflections of light and early morning fog glaze over me.

I should not be driving.

So I sip on the coffee I picked up at a gas station.  It burns my tongue and I whimper.  Like a child.  Then a cigarette is in my mouth and I'm lowering the window.  Letting the cold air come rushing in.

Cars breeze by me.  To my left.  To my right.

I am not going fast enough.

I press on the accelerator and try to concentrate.  Widen my eyes and straighten my back.  A couple slaps on either cheek.

Then I'm playing with the radio.  I'm pressing buttons and turning knobs.  Catching static and country tunes, weather reports and pop songs.  A car horn blares at me as I drift into the next lane.

I jerk the wheel right.  Then left.  Then right again.

Angry commuters glare at me for the moment they have to peer in through my windows, before speeding off toward the horizon.  Such contorted and pained expressions.

I can't keep up.

So I check my mirrors and make my way to the side of the highway.  Coast to a stop.  Close my eyes and lean back.  Let the cigarette lackadaisically hang my from lips.

And ignore the cars streaming by my window.

12/2

I gravitate between Winchester and Baltimore.  Two hours lost in each direction.  Two hours stripped away, no matter which way I face.  How long have I stared at the highway?

In Baltimore I scoop coffee beans into buckets.  Into bags.  Where ever they need to go.  I do this all day.  When I leave I carry clouds of coffee fumes with me.

In Winchester I wander about the apartment.  I kick up dust and let the cat sit on my stomach and knead my chest when I inevitably crash to the floor.  Occasionally I'll stare at myself in the mirror for an undocumented amount of time.  Pull at hairs or poke at pores or trace all the little red lines of my eye.

In the car I smoke cigarettes and weed.  Drink coffee and beer.  Anything to modify the experience of sitting in the driver's seat and tugging at the steering wheel while maneuvering through fleets of angry commuters.  The radio goes on and off every fifteen minutes or so.  It fluctuates with my aggravation.

And I hope for an end.  I twist my fingers together and close my eyes in desperation, aware that I'm doing nothing beyond crossing my fingers and closing my eyes.  But I pretend it means something more.  I pretend it has substance and power.  That it'll make a difference.  That, for some reason, it will alleviate some of the tension and pressure of moving and transitioning and settling and remaining so undoubtedly apprehensive.

But when I open my eyes I see nothing but grey skies.  Condensation dripping from the power lines.  The flicker of a store front sign.  Brake lights.  

Do I feel lighter?

12/1

Nightmares.  I wake cold in darkness.  In a basement somewhere outside Baltimore.

Have I been kidnapped?

I wrap the checkered blanket around me tightly and curl into the fetal position.  Chatter.  Shiver.

Carpet lays beneath me and I dig my face into it.  Try to heat myself with my breath.  It doesn't work.  I spit strands of hair from my mouth.

And that nightmare.  Who was walking toward me?  The figure that gave me such a shudder I found myself mumbling when I woke.  Heart racing.  Fists clenched.

Better not to remember.  Better that it has left me.  Better to be alone.

Then I wonder of the hour and how soon the sun will rise and bring me some warmth, some light.  But I dare not check the time.  I dare not open my eyes or move from beneath this blanket.

If not for fear of the cold and darkness, then fear of my own imagination.  And the terrors it will create when I give it a window.

11/30

I spend a day with Melancholy.  He appears in sweatpants and a hoodie.  We mull about the apartment.  Roll around.  Toss about.

The day is passed on the floor.

We go on treasure hunts together.  Picking pebbles of kitty litter from between the cracks of wood.  Inspecting them.  Analyzing them.  Which came from where?

We perform patrol duties by the open window.  Asses threats as people march by with coffee cups in hand, gabbing on about how Davey isn't improving in math at the preferred rate, or how the break room at the office is always such a mess.

We perform interrogations in the bathroom.  Bear down on my reflection.  Apply pressure.  We ask him what happened that one night last week at the bar, when that girl with dark rimmed glasses kissed him on the cheek after they had finished their fourth last beverage.  But he doesn't remember.  Too many missing details.  Too much whiskey.

We lay on our backs and pretend to be corpses.  We pick a spot on the ceiling and dissolve into it.  Let it take us.  Let it devour us.

When it spits me back out Melancholy is gone.  I've been abandoned.  Left.

So I rise and begin pacing.  Check the time.  Only five in the evening.  Leaving me with several daunting hours to wade through.  To chop down.  Escape from.  Church bells resound off my walls and with all the dings and dongs I'm suddenly spinning in cacophony.  

Then I feel a slap on my shoulder.  It grounds me.  And I turn to see the broad smile of its owner.

Restlessness.

11/29

My head.  It's throbbing.  Creating pain rhythmically.  I pull it from the floor.  Try to steady it atop my neck.  The room bends.

My beard is saturated with drool.  Empty beer bottles lay between my legs.  The cat bites at my toes but I'm too occupied removing the crust from my eyes to pay him mind.

I reach around for a water bottle.  Agua.  H2O.  Sustenance.

I feel cigarette butts.  Miscellaneous wrappers.  Bags.  I knock over half a beer.  Let the liquid fizz and spread about the floorboards.

When I grab the bottle of water there's not much left.  I drain it.  Hold the open mouth above my own.  Shake.

I remember a restaurant from the night before.  The big glass store front.  The big breasted hostess in the polka dot dress.

I remember the whiskey.  Always the whiskey.

I remember, once we were seated and had placed our beverage order, telling the dinner party that I'll be right back.  "Just going to the restroom."

I remember strolling past the Men's door, turning the corner, and hooking around to the bar.

I remember smiling at the slim brunette, standing behind the taps.  I remember her smiling back at me and although this immediately created a weightlessness to my gait and a tingle down the back of my neck, there was this unwavering certainty that her smile was nothing more than programming from a chapter in the service industry's training manual.

Then I remember a shot.  A smile.  Another shot.  A puzzled expression from the waiter tending my party as he rounded up the drinks for the table.

I remember strolling up to him.  Removing my beer from his tray, patting him on the back with a wink and turning towards the restroom.  

It gets a little blurry after that.

11/28

I wake before the sun this morning.  Rise before it does.  Begin moving with the moon.  Through darkness.  Through cold.

Baltimore awaits.

So I grab what I need.  A bottle of water.  Some marijuana.  Cigarettes.

Then I'm out the door.  Into the frigid morning air.  

Ice covers my windshield and I bash at it with the scraper from my car.  Shards fly at my face.  Into my eyes.  I'm blinded.  In a rage I bash harder and when I regain my vision I see the scraper has lost all its teeth.

Then I'm in the car.  Then I'm driving.  Squinting through the frozen mess before me.  Puffing smoke out the window crack.  

I take the one-hitter from my pocket and load it.  Hit it.  Close my eyes.  Sink into my chair.  Swerve between lanes.

The sun is rising and the silhouettes of the mountains beside me tempt me to make a hard right and never look back.  To speed down the dirt road till I reach the feet of their forests.  To strip myself of clothes, products, and materials.  All my notions and philosophies.  All my beliefs and disbeliefs.  Obligations and recreations.  To walk on the fallen leaves and broken branches of life before me.  To scramble up blankets of boulders and hike through legions of trees.  To take in lungs full of air and worlds worth of sight, all to stand high above and look down with the knowledge that this journey accomplished absolutely nothing.

I press on the gas.  Focus on the black stretch ahead.  Drag on the cigarette.

Baltimore.  Will you be my mountain? 

11/27

It's quiet Thanksgiving morning.  I don't think I'll be seeing anyone today.  No family.  No friends, though it is debatable whether I actually have any left.  Not a soul.

Of course, it is daybreak and for the past few years of my life I've displayed that I really am a poor judge of future events.  Of using present conditions to hypothesis a later outcome.  Not so good at it.

That's why I'm squatting in this empty apartment with a cat.  Why I don't have a change of clothes.  Or a clue as to where I'll be tonight, though I seriously believe we don't need to dispute that.  Why I've lost all hobbies and aspirations.  Friends and foes.  A sense of identity.

And where the hell did all my cigarettes and whiskey go?

Every living moment is a chance to turn it all around.  Yes.  Absolutely.  But this hardwood floor seems to be getting softer.  And these clothes seem to be losing their smell.  My hunger is waning the more and more I don't appease it, and sleep is becoming a welcome nourishment.  Maybe happiness has come to me.  Maybe this is it.  I just had to wait it out.  Patience.

Then the cat slurps as he chews at a knot or an itch on his rear leg.  The neighbor above runs her vacuum across the hardwood flooring.  Back and forth through my ceiling.  Back and forth.

And I see Insanity staring at me.  He's seated by the window in a black brimmed hat.  Legs crossed.  Arms resting on the chair.  Behind him, shadows slide down sides of the houses across the street.

And I have to bite the meat of my hand before speaking.  Just to make sure.  Teeth marks.  They're there.  I'm here.  Then I turn to him.

"Is today the day?" I ask.

He says nothing.  Air rushes from his nose.

"Is today the day you're going to take me?" I'm leaning forward now.  Wondering if I'm talking out loud.

But he just lights a cigarette.  Glances at a bird landing on the telephone pole outside.  Smoke splays out on the glass before him, then dissipates into the room.

"Are you going to stay for Thanksgiving?" I ask.

Then he stands.  The chair disappears.  Still facing the window, he lowers his head.  Sighs.  

The whine of the vacuum ceases.  I look at the cat, who's now curled in a ball on the sleeping bag, then back at the window.  He's gone, but his cigarette lays burning on the window sill.  A trail of smoke crawling up through the blinds.  

I rise and walk over.  The sun rests behind the clouds creating a bluish-grey hue to the morning.  Roads are vacant, besides the slosh from yesterday's snow.

I grab the cigarette.  Bring it to my lips.  Breathe in so slow and deliberately.  So I can feel the irritation in my throat as the smoke glides down, the dryness in my mouth as it sits in my lungs, and the rush to my head once the nicotine's done its work.

Then I exhale.

Thanksgiving.  

Sent from my iPad

11/26

It's the rain that'll keep me in today.  I say this to myself.  Even though the cat is present behind me, offering a groan to the situation.  I say this to myself.

As I stand by the window overlooking Cameron St., cars cruise by, splashing through each divot in the road.  Soaked garbage bags sit stacked on sidewalks and the light from street lamps inches across the early morning fog.

I turn back to the empty room.  It's dark, but I keep the lights off.  No use for eyesight in here.

Then there are sounds from the hallway.   A neighbor stumbling down the steps with her little terrier.  "We'll have to be quick today," she's saying as the dog pants excitedly.  Skitters by my door.  Then they're below my window.  Her voice carries through the rain, as I can only imagine she continues to give the dog details of the day and praises for being a dog.  A good dog, no doubt.

But I return to the floor.  To the cold wood.  The cat wanders over and sniffs my shoulder.  The side of my face.  My beard.  Then he struts to the other side of the room.  Plops down.  Drags his tongue over his back.

And I think of the city.  How this day was to be filled with it.  My time.  My consciousness.  But that was stripped from me somewhere, and although I believe I have the power to search it out and retrieve it, I lay on the floor.  I blame the rain.  Or is it snow now?  The drops seem to have gained more mass.  Grown larger.  Become fluffier.  Whiter.  I can't really tell from down here though.

And there's a despondency that slides over me.  Today is done.  I woke to see the sunrise and it turned its back on me.  Am I not good enough?

Well, there probably wasn't anything gratifying out there anyway.  Nothing to tickle or entice my being.  To fulfill these whimsical urges.  Nothing to satisfy this observational apparatus and the ghoul within.  

Snow is falling harder now.  Time to settle.  Like a frozen fragment of precipitation joining his fallen siblings on the dirty ground.

Right.

11/25

Alright.  We're here again.  Well, at least I am.  Bearded and on the floor.  Sitting.  Existing.  Occupying space on this creaky, hardwood floor.

How far have I come?  Where was I before?  Is there any direction?

And I have some company.  A witness to my decomposition.  The feline stationed to my right.  Staring with green eyes that settle on me with some unrelenting revulsion.  Some unappeased disgust.  

Am I so grotesque he can't look away?

These clothes haven't left my skin for days.  Marked by the scent of cigarettes and whiskey.  Coffee and grime.  What is this stain from?  Blood?  Mucus?  Mine?

The apartment I wake in is bare.  With my head on the floor I can see all the dust, fur, and dander in the morning light.  And I must pry the sleeping bag from the cat to stay warm.  My only other option being the half empty whiskey bottle by the bathroom sink, but daybreak seems a little early to throw some back, even for me.  There's a pizza box on the kitchen floor, though I can't recall the last time I ate pizza.  Scattered papers in the hallway.  Trash bags by the front door.  There is not much going on here.

And there never really was.  Kinda what it all came down to.  A need for constant stimulation.  A steady stream of outlets for my dwindling attention span.  For my incessant unrest.  For me.

So, what do I do?  Baltimore?  Is that where we're headed?  Back to the city?  Who the hell is steering this thing anyway?  Is there a lever I can pull to request off?

And, as before, maybe this wasn't the first entry I had intended to submit, but it'll stand as such. It'll have to.  As these days ceaselessly press into me, this will have to do.