Bliss. It's what's good for you.

Where am I?

I am sitting at the bus stop next to you.

What are you doing?

You are sitting with you boyfriend.  You seem to be oblivious to the  whole fucking world.  I don't know what kind of drugs you guys are on, but they seem good.

You eyes are filled with moisture.  You wipe the sleep out of each other's eyes.  You sit with your legs over your boyfriend.  You have not glanced up from one another.  


You have not washed your hair this week. 

Neither of you smell bad in the early March heat of Arizona. The wind is swirling from  behind you.  It makes it way over to me and all I smell is tobacco.  I smell meatloaf.  I smell Aqua Net.

Who the fuck uses Aqua Net nowadays?

Both of you have adult acne.  Though I bet neither of you did 3 years ago.   I am thinking that's what Meth does for you. 

Two fingers press down and the head explodes and you both giggle, and one of you wipes the blood away using a white t-shirt that you forget to wash.

Later you put on that shirt and walk out the door.  Because you are oblivious.

I want the oblivion.

I did not always.

I wanted to be in the world.  I wanted to be conscious of every single moment.  I would smack myself in the face every time I walked into a kitchen and opened the refrigerator door without knowing why I was standing there.  

I used to run to the used book store to buy up all the paperback editions of Sigmund Freud I could find.  I wanted to make all the unconscious...conscious.  

I was a fool.

Now I want to be like you.  I want to sit at on a bus stop bench and pick at my hair like some kind of gorilla in the midst.

I see the connection you have.  I see the total absorption of your thoughts and I am resentful of my life.  I am resentful of the talking man in the back of my head.  The narrator that won't shut the fuck up.

A few years ago. I would not have understood.  

Understanding has more to do with acceptance that anything else.    Let me tell you that.  You don't know shit if you can't accept it.

I accept it all now.  I really do.

I can look in the eyes of one of those Jehovah's Witnesses and accept what I never got before.  

The need to belong.  The need for connection.  I never had that kind of thing.  Maybe I was more like a serial killer than a normal human being.

I learned something from you.  I learned how fucking needy humans are.  I thank you for that.  

Well.  What I mean is that you are the personification of need.  You materialize the need humans have for belonging right out in the open.  That's why all the middle class people on the way to pick up the prescriptions are bugged out by you.

You remind them how truly needy they are.  

They fucking hate you.  They look over at you and clutch their purses, and they clutch their crosses, and pop open their bottles of Zoloft.  

You don't even need to talk to each other.  Do you?

That's fucking great!

I wished I could be just like that.  All the time.  I mean it.

I want the bliss man.  I want it bad. 

Once you get the bliss in your life you want it all time.  Whenever it is gone from your life, you want it back.  Bad.  

It's all your gonna think about.  So why not?  Find someone and go for it.  That's what I think.

What's the downside?

Dirty shirts worn in public.  

Did you notice any of the stares behind your back.  Did you care that you waited for a bus that came and went without you?  Where were you going anyway?  Everything you need is right in front of you.  

You put your hands together and make spider webs.  You run your hands down his forearm.  You take your thumb and pinky finger and caress his palm.  You give him a gentle kiss on the lips.

His 3 day old stubble burns across your lips.  There are shivers running down your spine.  Your brain is ticked on the inside.  You kick off your flip flops.  Some vagrant eyes them greedily.  You don't mind.  Maybe the vagrant needs your flip flops more that you.

You don't need anything.  Blue tracers shoot out of your eyes.  The street noise is like a soothing, calm brook.  The sirens are rocking you to sleep. 

I'm going to stop watching you.  I am going to get on my bus.  I am going to stop hoping for a druggie girl friend.  I am going to put my apron on.  I am going to tie it in the back and punch at the time clock and I won't remember you.  I won't remember the short shorts.  I won't remember the the tight white strapless tube top that you let fall half way down.

Don't look at me.

Don't look over at me.

I don't want to see anything else. I don't want to see your eyes.  I can't bear it. I can't face those blue eyes. I don't need the understanding you want to give me.  

You eyes are huge.  Bigger than softballs.  Huge pupils swallow me in.  So moist.  So wet.  The whites of your eyes are so wet and  pure.  So beautiful.  They say hello.  They are attached to such a fantastic smile.  All your teeth still.  The lines of your face creep up and bring forth such a pure smile from your soul.  

For a second I have your attention.  Not just your attention, But your ATTENTION.  

I am inside the well.  

I am in your arms.  

I am beckoned into you.

I am received.

I am loved.

And then you turn away.  Or maybe I did.  There are puffs of black smoke.  There are people all around me.  They are getting in my way.  They are stepping over my blue backpack.  They are getting on the bus.  They are not looking at me.  They avoid the backpack without seeing it.  They are not looking at me. They don't know I am here.  They know I am here. But they don't know I am here.

I pick up my blue backpack.  I shove my i-pod down the front zipper.  I climb up the stair inside the bus, but before the driver slams the door I look back.

"He cannot cut us off."  Your eyes tell me.  

They are still there. The black pupils.  So wide.  So patient.  So sad for me.   So blissfully happy for me.   

"You can come back anytime."  She whispers to me.

The bus door slams between us.   I fall into my seat. The bus jerks forward and she moves away. I stare into her dark black eyes until I see nothing.