One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, four – I suck down drinks with a wince until I’m drunk enough to suck ‘em down and not wince. It’s Friday, the start of the weekend, and that means I’ve got a full week of shit to forget about, just like every other weekend that ever has been and probably ever will be. Tonight I won’t remember that exam I failed on Tuesday or that on Wednesday I cheated on my girlfriend for the second time. By midnight I won’t remember exactly how many drinks I’ve had or exactly what bar I’m at. I’ll forget that I was late on my rent payment yet again this month due to my total inability to save money for important things.

I’ll become the here and the now and the music and the lights and the laughter and the touching and the friendship and the youth. For a short period I’ll take my life into my own hands.

The thing about alcohol, though, is that it’s called a depressant for a reason. Once I come down, I’ll find myself down some alley or on some curb, my head in my hands and my girl rubbing my back and doing her best to stop my tears. But I won’t stop crying because all of a sudden I remember that exam I failed which is just the latest of many keeping me from graduating. I remember my continuing infidelity, my financial instability. But I especially remember the drunken car crash that killed my brother and left me without a scratch.

He was going to be a dad. He never knew. Kaila is 18 weeks old now, and she will never forgive me when she’s grown. Neither will her mother, or my own. My dad hasn’t spoken to me in over six months. He hates me, and I would hate me, too. I do hate me. I can’t blame any of them.

All I can do is try to forget, one drink at a time, one night at a time.

Tomorrow I can try again.

It would almost slip out sometimes, when I wasn’t paying close enough attention to my words – the “L Bomb.” It tried several times to escape during that final, deep intake of breath at the end of a particularly hard laughing fit. It fought away from my lips that I could barely keep clasped together when we stared at each other late at night, struggling to control our teenage antics.

It caught me by surprise how soon I started thinking about you in that way, and I was sure you thought about me the same. But I didn’t want to give in, not just yet; I didn’t want to be that guy who fell in love too fast. There was no fighting it, though. I loved you just as much then as I did when I finally let it explode. And when that bomb went off, we stood together in awe of the effects. I remember the vibrant colors, and the rush of air as the world flew around us, and the feeling of your arm around my shoulder while we gazed forever upwards at the greatest spectacle of our lives.

I never expected the dust to settle so soon, covering my world with endless grays, when I had finally gotten used to the gold of your eyes. When I had finally started to believe I actually deserved to live in a world of color.

Black, perfect black. Not the fake, almost-black-but-kinda-gray black. Real black. That’s what I feel inside of me all the time. There is no light, just the absence of it. There is no color, no warmth, just dark, cold, solid blackness that grows bit by bit each day. It started as a numbness in my fingers, right at the very tips. After a while it started to tingle, like when your leg falls asleep. The tingling spread through the rest of my hands and up my arms. Then the tingle disappeared. Or maybe it’s still there, but I went from recognizing that dull ache of numbness to feeling nothing at all. Just the absence of it.

Whenever I feel the tingle, I know I’m about to lose more of myself to the dark. But when the nothingness got to my memory, it took over even quicker there than anywhere else. The tingle never came. All I can remember is the black. I know there must have been a time before it. A time of color and warmth. There must have been. Right?

People I vaguely recognize try to talk to me sometimes, or rather they talk at me, because I don’t really hear them. My hearing is on its way out. They give up soon enough because they figure I’m ignoring them, but the truth is that I don’t know how to tell them I don’t understand their attempts. I stopped speaking a long time ago. I don’t remember my last words.

On the days when I manage to do more than count the ringlets in the wooden coffee table, I dig out the same lighter I’ve had in a junk drawer since a one-night-stand left it here two years ago, and I experiment with the flame. I’m slowly turning the mahogany finish to a charred ebony color, and I hold my hand far too close to the flame than is normally safe.

I wish I could feel it, but it won’t be long before the black diminishes my hope, too. Then I won’t wish anymore. I’ll just be.

I’ll just be the black. I’ll just be the nothing.

I’ve got my first sentence and the slightest hint of where I want it to go, and that’s really all I need to get going on a story. So I’m gonna run with it. Will probably post it if it’s half-decent.

Like, for a few hours at a time. Turn on music, grab some snacks, and just write, and see what happens. I keep meaning to, but life has the tendency to get in the way.

But I really want to make some time for it. I’m thinking more short story or maybe even something a bit more long-winded, instead of the prose that I usually dive into when I get into a mood.

I have a couple started from a while ago. Maybe I’ll revisit them, or maybe I’ll just start fresh. Can’t force it.

I guess it could have been the weather. And the lack of good company. Either way, I kinda couldn’t wait to come back. Back to my life of nothingness, of desperation, of waiting and wishing and hoping.

I need a project. Something to take my mind off of everything else, or something to help me deal with it in a productive way. Music, writing, exercise. That’s what I’m going to try and devote the rest of my summer to.

I’m tired of reading. It makes me sad. I don’t know how or why, but it does. It’s supposed to be an escape, a way to make me forget my own life. But instead it’s making me put myself in someone else’s shoes, and often times it blows. Apparently I’ve gotten too good at empathy.

I need to change some things up. Have more fun. Look out for number one.

Guess I’m ready to head back to school, then, cause that’s the only way I can manage these things. This place is poison for my morale.

that a short story from me wasn’t far off. That was a few weeks ago now. I did start it, but I haven’t even touched it since. I have a pretty good idea for a series of interconnected short stories, but I haven’t been making the time to develop it.

Then last night I started an unrelated short story. I randomly got this short spurt of inspiration, and I immediately wrote down all the ideas. I’ll probably make this into a series as well, I guess sort of like chapters. I think that one will probably be finished before the first from the other series.

Just goes to show that you can’t force this kind of stuff. It has to just happen.