My Thoughts Were So Loud I Couldn’t Hear My Mouth

Tuesday, January 23, 2007 at 7:00 PM

I could taste the vomit in my mouth when I woke up this morning. It was accumulating in the back of my throat and burned away at my uvula. I've been waking up with stomach pain and chest pain lately but this is the first time I've actually thrown up in my sleep. If my alarm didn't go off, I would have suffocated. No. I don't know that. My stomach might be bleeding. Maybe just an ulcer. Or worse. Who wants to know that? If you could choose between living with a terminal disease or never knowing something was wrong with you, what would you choose? Ignorance is bliss. If someone close to you was dying already, if your family was already grieving, would you put them through the bother of having to deal with another?

If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't have got out of bed this morning. Wouldn't have thrown up again. Wouldn't have seen her screaming from a wheelchair across the room with eyes half shut. Wouldn't have fought with her because that's all I'm capable anymore. You and I are like when fire and the ocean floor collide. We're drifting apart and I know I'm to blame. I am unable to apologize and incapable of doing it enough.

As the lady checked me today, I could feel my pulse racing. It's never done that before. "Are you nervous?" She asked me. I wanted to say yes, but I didn't know how to answer. Nervous about what? Should I stop at one?

Philadelphia isn't going to happen. Paramus isn't going to happen. New York isn't going to happen. Key West was a long shot in the first place. It takes a disaster to get me to leave town, what's it gonna take to get me to drop anchor somewhere else?

I'm tired of arguing but I can't apologize because that only makes things worse. I make things worse. Bigmouth strikes again. And I've got no right to take my place with the human race.