friday night

It used to work, but now it doesn’t. Staring at the wall noticing the texture differences; white and peeling. The wall unit is humming but not cooling. The night is hot and there is whiskey in the drawer but it stays there, and somewhere there is wine. Another Friday night and solitude is all I can feel anymore. Today never happened among the ranks of so many others. I thought about going out, for a second, but then I thought of people, who might try to talk to me. Better play it safe. I don’t like excuses, giving them, and they always ask. So I’m giving into that side? You never knew me if you were surprised. Turned off all the lights leaving the glow of the monitor as I thought about writing someone, but no, not tonight. I’m in too honest a mood for that. Instead I read old things I used to like wondering where I was at then, so young, too young.
The phone rings. I watch it light up without noticing the caller. I answered the phone yesterday. It was enough. I like the old songs, and they make me feel like something exists beyond my own thoughts. I believed in a god once, but I don’t know where he went. I was a boy then, and I believed in many things at the time. Now that I’m a man who believes in next to nothing and maybe nothing, am I any better off? Does knowing the truth help, or can you ever know? If I die before I wake, who will read my unfinished book? And those poems? Maybe I should get a safe and hide them. My journals too. Damn they’d be so intrusive going through my things trying to find an answer I left off the pages. That is the one thing I can protect from them. All their searching won’t come close, not even if they knew where to look. Why so focused on death tonight? Is it the darkness? My favorite time of day is when it’s over, and you can sit in the shadows of an electric light. Tonight it’s just my computer and me, but it’s enough.