and the fog is like an angry ghost

--& i try to draw ampersands freehand.

--& i can't sleep.

--& i sneezed so hard my throat closed, for a second, but long enough to scare me.

--& my feet are hot, again, just around the toes, like in those commercials for athlete's foot medication.

--& i remember the time my mom told me an aunt had a gangrenous toe; all i could think about was that toe, one i had never seen, going black like a rotten fruit.

--& i thought his red shirt really set off his eyes.

--& i tried to stop thinking it because he belonged to someone else.

--& i keep waking up with tension headaches.

--& she was wearing a hat, half a lemon with its guts scooped out; a yellow coat and bare legs.

--& i thought: is this what agoraphobia feels like?

--& we discuss the apocalypse, only half in jest, because it can't be that far off.

--& they played tag, and i was base.

--& i didn't say: i could never kiss a guy with so many lumps on his upper lip.

--& i miss the times i never cried about anything, happy or sad.

--& i sat on the hood of my car at night, in an empty parking lot, swatting at bugs and scribbling in my journal, understanding the moment meant something even though i couldn't define that something.

--& by the way i've never as much as tweezed my eyebrows.

--& the edwardians were boring and so was america during the victorian period.

--& i drove around for ten minutes, trying to avoid the hills, because i had nightmares about them when i was younger; i'd approach a sharp crest going downhill and it would go all the way down, vertical, into a black gaping gap.

--& by the way, a little anxiety is OK; who actually enjoys careening down a steep grade at high speed?

--& one time, he took us over a jump in his jeep. the jump was basically a forced hop over a curb, but he was skinny as a rail and had that trashy haircut, shaved but for a long flop of hair in a ponytail on top. he smelled nice.

--& most things i say are jokes at my own expense.

--& i can't help but to worry.

--& it makes sense; i'm extraordinarily unprepared in event of a zombie attack.

--& if i couldn't beat them, i would join them. because zombies don't know any better, they have one track minds. i miss not knowing any better.