I was going to sleep where I shouldn't have but a good-hearted woman climbed out of bed in the dark and saved me from the dangers. Enough to make me glad for a day. A day and a little more.

But now something cold is dripping outside the window, dripping like wet socks. Something I can't help, something I have no right to complain about either. Because I forgot how chilly a day can be. Because what I was thinking of was understanding.

Lies of a chronic sufferer.

It has always been upsetting to the extreme. Leaving with certain memorizations carved by years of flow and returning to find out that forgetfulness erased the rote but certain men of a former generation never learned how to love and probably never will. Maybe that's not accurate, but a chronic liar can stretch the truth in the negative direction because a chronic liar pays hell for stretching it the other way.

here's a riddle: y=f(x).
x broke at the breakfast table.
afunctionofearlymorningimplosionis"____expression."

Ha ha. Play on w o r d s p r a y o n l o v e l i e s a chronic malcontent.

Ha ha. An afternoon diversion.

Your face, daughter, your face is giving it away.

No, I don't want to accept or give or for-give because I'm too cold on the outside to have a beat left. Something broke before the water did and here I am in the sea being comforted by a woman who has been submerged for nineteen years, who climbed out of bed and saved me from the wreckage, and who's napping right now and who will wake up still submerged and go about her lot, persevering and faithful. An underwater oak tree. An oak under water. Soaking up what she's been dealt, hung out, wrung out to drip drip drip.

Some people say that when it rains, it's God pissing. Some people say that when it rains, it's God weeping. The salt carton says that when it rains, it pours. So it's either pouring piss or it's pouring tears today. Or else it's raining right now just because. Just because people are liars trying to project themselves, liars trying to protect themselves, people out there pissing and people out there weeping, and the truth being that God is not far removed. oh no, holy and near, oh no oh no oh no oh no oh.

What a joke. What a worn, terrible joke I play on myself. Because I forgot how chilly my insides are. Because what I was thinking of was convenience and not the cross.