Jarring as it may seem, I awake every day with a quiver of insecurity sensationalized by the lack of adrenaline forcing its way through my body like surging water trying to creep up over a bouldered blockade. Trapped inside my box, my home, until I can creep out into the toiled world and get my fix. Obsolete is my perspective of everything which does not include me. I’m slightly egocentric  and it tickles me to no end to say I am, especially to the honky down the street who believes I’m nothing worth being egocentric about. Most look at me and think “what a waste” this is not my interpretation of the piercing look, but it’s that look coupled with the actual statement “what a waste” which makes me understand how they feel.

I wasn’t always this way. I know what your thinking, “sure they all say that to justify,”  but honestly I feel I’m beyond justifications. I am what I do and who I am is of no concern to you. Seriously, I use to have a big corner office, Betty got my double espresso with low-fat lactaid free milk and filed my bountiful accounts and scheduled my many dubious appointments. Betty was great, buoyant and optimistic, exactly the way I prefer. She never had a care in the world unless it involved my world; she was dedicated to me. If there is anything I miss about my previous existence, it would be her.

I managed other people’s lives. I helped get them together when they were feeling in pieces. I gracefully maneuvered through their personal issues like an avid swimmer. It was poetic at times, yet I felt distant, disconnected. It was this disconnect which became the stem of the maraschino cherry and led me to desiring more than the stem, but the whole artificially flavored cherry. I didn’t need the entire hot fudge sundae underneath, I only needed the cherry on top. The fastest way to the cherry, I discovered, does not have to be achieved through years of discipline, but rather a simple jaunt down to the North End of town will do the trick.

My first time was angelic like bursting rainbows in your mouth. There was a sensation of a pot of gold with every consumption. Not only did I feel connected, but I felt everything. It was like all my senses having a party and I was the stripper, in the middle of it all. Without the brain being able to sensor in a functional way and with my inhibitions on the low, I felt everything. Color was brighter, noises were louder, everything tasted sensational, it felt like I was partaking of everything for the first time. What a thrill! A roller coaster of exceptional feelings and desires which I’d only experiences perhaps once before but forgotten how amazing until the day I met Tim.

Tim was great. He had shaggy brown hair worn in the longish style you see on skateboard punks. It was difficult to differentiate between whether his hair was wet or whether he attempted to grease it on purpose. His pants rested just on each butt cheek and his boxer shorts replaced where a belt should have been. He wore an extreme amount of cologne for one so young.