From Yesterday

I’m out of bed.  So what? Big fucking deal.  I’m back inside of day one, morning one, except this time there is no funeral to plan, no details of a military burial to go over, nothing to distract my mind from whatever the fuck place this is where nothing makes sense.  

Today I DoorDashed coffee.  It’s that kind of morning here inside of day one.  I’m there but I’m here and the discordance of those two things is wreaking havoc on my brain.  I know it’s not then.  I know it’s been 184 days since the doorbell rang.  I know today is not that day, or even worse, all the days that came after, but for some reason my heart forgot  all the days that came between that day and now.  There’s no reasoning with sadness today.  It demands that I lay in my bed, kitten nestled against my chest, paws reaching over my arms, GSD vying for a spot at the foot of the bed while the old lady hound snuggles up to my leg.  My coffee arrived 16 minutes ago, yet here I lay coffeeless, still in bed unable to move while it sits patiently in front of my door.  There will be no anchors today.  No sound of the tea kettle warming the water, no sound of the blinds just before the food drops into their bowls, no spoons dropping grounds into the filter or the sound of the water as it drips through the filter and into my cup.  Today I will drift through the day, anchorless and free. 

Perhaps I’ll visit my garden.  The drizzle of rain doesn’t matter.  There’s a low hum of life steady laying thick in the air.  Summer flowers giving it one last final go.  Allium buds once purple now dried up and brown.  I wonder how they will look in the snow.  Perhaps I wont prune so I can find out.  The birds aren’t looking for Richard anymore.  They probably found him just in time to fly south.  I was going to quit smoking then forgot and now I don’t care.  There was a man who once lived and then he packed up his bags, got in his truck then put a gun to his head.  I can’t change any of that.  I can’t go back in time.  I can change the course of this day that arrived while I slept.  I can’t go to work because today there aren’t any anchors and I’m not even going to try to find them.  I’m going to sit back and drift through the day.  

It’s evening.  I’ve successfully done nothing at all except write about my anchorless day, retrieve my coffee from the porch, talk to a few old friends, and now here I am in this time fucking warp.  I am struck by the horror of the tragedy of the doorbell.  I am even more struck by how such a horrifying thing can become neatly tucked into the grooves of a day. I suppose it never stays neatly tucked anywhere though.  This morning it definitely lodged itself loose from the corners that I worked so hard to fit them into.  Fuck it.  The true horror of that fucking goddamn doorbell will never go away I suppose.  This is what happens when we neglect our souls.  It turns on us eventually, like a child crying out for attention.  Goddamn this is drab shit.  That’s how this day feels though.  Drab. Dull.  Horrifyingly horrible like it felt on day one.  Nothing makes sense.  I wonder which day will show up tonight while I sleep.