Oh, God. I’m dying and I’m alone. I’m dying and no one cares because we’re all dying, we’re all flying through space at the same rate.

“Faster . . .”

and sometimes it’s too mundane, to die a little every single day and sometimes you can feel it, you can feel how fast we’re flying through space and

“It’s amazing.”

He kisses me to thank me for the compliment. When he takes his mouth away again I want to say I’m dying but maybe that’s not exactly what he wants to hear.

It’s all mixed in my head, everything’s mixed up. It’s like, I didn’t want you anyway, just leave me the fuck alone but if you stop I’ll fucking kill you. Do you hear me? Fucking. Kill. You. But of course he doesn’t hear me because this is all just a blur of nonsense thoughts and sensations that’s sometimes like a kaleidoscope, all colors and brightness, and sometimes that muddled nothing color that happens when you’re a kid and you mix all the Play-Doh together and your mom shouts that you’ve ruined it now but how were you supposed to know—

“Oh God, keep doing that.”

“What?”

“That.”

“That?”

“Oh God.”

Oh shit, I can’t remember his name. I was just about to yell it out. It’s—sometimes it’s, it’s—sometimes it’s nice to be encouraging when they’re doing something good or even when, when, even when it’s not going so well, it’s nice to say something because you’ve got to make noise, I mean, when you’re making noise already and it’s nice—

“Oh, Jason.”

Aha! Jason, of course—it’s good, to encourage them, so they know how it’s going and saying their name makes it, makes it, makes it, like, oh, personal. It’s nice, it’s a nice thing to do. Women and children first, women and children first. We’re inside each other and he’s got me surrounded and suddenly I feel perfect and perfect and perfectly sure that I’m going to die very soon, maybe even now, maybe even in the moment that was now and just passed and I’m gushing my life out like a fat, bleeding bee.

There’s a man in my bed. Not my man, really. And in a way it’s not even my bed. But they’re both mine now. The springs press into my right side and his hand rests on my left side.

“Your hair’s all messed up.”

“So what.”