Birthday – plasticbagger & Manuel Marrero

April 4, 2020

i got a scratch off on my desk from a few months ago. “halloweek jack sweepstakes, win up to $25,000!” its corners are starting to curl. while the crease down near the middle has become fuzzy with age. i actually won $3 off this thing but haven’t cashed out yet. there’s nothing $3 can buy right now that’s as valuable as that feeling of having a win on reserve. because the older i get the more i realize how worthy of a foe this world really is. 

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I had a birthday panic attack in the shower, having convinced myself it was a stroke. Maybe it had something to do with a story I listened to earlier in the week. My neck went stiff and my arms numb. The rest of the night felt like a series of tiny seizures watered down with red wine. It was the third one I’d had since quarantine. If there was relief waiting for me on reserve, I wanted it then and now. I texted with two females I met on Tinder while barred out and watching Kinetta, thinking this is the most obtuse movie I’ve ever seen and how I’d love someone to explain it to me. One of them is a nurse. The other is too young. Neither are confirmed Covid-negative. So this is the world we live in now. Phone dates. Stockpiling meds. Ryan Bry said something profound, about how the world had been ending in his head for the last year, and he was relieved because now it was outside his head, and everyone had accepted it.

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