I was trying to get Ursula on the line but I kept seeing her picture and thinking: what’s there to write?  She already loves me!  But she wasn’t talking for like 20 minutes as I sat here drinking sparkling water and getting a little buzz off it.  I kept listening for some still small voice to speak up, but we’d pretty much covered where we’re at yesterday.  Or at least that’s how it seemed right now.  In reality, however, she was back there—but I was writing, in this instance, after painting instead of before—so she might be at a different address right now—I’m really not sure.  You want me to come back  there, she finally said something—so i told her, “of course i want you to come back.”  We’re going somewhere special, you and I.  i was only thinking, right now, about getting a truck, filling it up with paintings, and convincing one of my brothers to drive it.  We were running out of space here—so, yes, we must’ve been talking about space, or she was thinking about it, and how much of a problem that was going to be for me—since she can’t afford, to my knowledge, to look after me.  Eventually she will be able to, i think, but for right now?  She doesn’t curtsy for rich people—which is one of the main reasons i like her, but that also meant that we couldn’t be together.

     Still using, at this point, just Ursula’s voice—that was getting me into conversation land—short “texts” that we sent back and forth—sometimes with space between them and other times back and forth.  You don’t know how i feel  so i figured i’d touched a nerve; i think what she was really saying was that her boyfriend didn’t know how she felt.  I wondered, sometimes, if he loved her more that she loved him, or if, on the other hand, he was just doing what he thought he was supposed to do, i.e. get married, be the first husband, maybe have kids if she wanted them, maybe not if she didn’t—as opposed to doing something that defined him outside of working hours.  But I wasn’t going to ask her about that—and then i thought, well, it is only natural to talk to the person you’re having an affair with about the person you’re cheating on and how they make you unhappy.  That was what forward progress in an affair looked like.  All affairs, at least a little, amounted to gossip.

    Now—I don’t want to be a negative Nancy, but I told Ursula that she would be attacked in her presidential campaign if she didn’t put an end to being a fiancé and get married—otherwise she needed to break it off.  This was her weakness, and, the more she put it off, the more vulnerable she became.  I expressly told her this.  You don’t know what i need.  touchy subject, of course.  So I decided i would do my best not to say anything more about that—if I did, I risked having an argument with her—and let’s be real: you don’t argue with someone that you’re in love with unless something isn’t right about the relationship—which, is often the case, and hence this idea that all is fair in love and war.  I didn’t really want to get into an argument with Ursula, not with something that could lead to ultimatums, or saying things that we can’t exactly walk back a little.

     We’re all going to make it—we’re going to be rich and famous!  that was the actress Margot Robbie talking; she used to live jammed up in an apartment (in NYC i guess) with the man that was to become her husband; i have to admit, I wasn’t exactly sure how her marriage worked—but nobody was talking about divorce and i would probably know, given the amount of time, of late, I’ve spent scrolling on Instagram, a social media outlet . . . but the odd thing about it was, no: that was Ursula’s voice—that was Ursula talking, so i wondered if my 5D self was trying to tell me something.  I don’t know why Margot Robbie popped in my head—but here’s the thing: she was already rich and famous—so what was Ursula saying?  That she loved me in the way that Margot Robbie loved the man (Jacob Elordi) she partnered with in the movie Wuthering Heights?  But our love, like their love, was never meant to be, i.e., would she go back to her fiancé after the completion of this book?

    I was sticking with just Ursula’s voice for now—on both the consonants and the vowels.  I had also revealed her identity in one of my book-length poems, which was invigorating, if not misleading.  But her identity here, must remain a mystery because this book is about Ursula—the woman of my dreams, and, well, an election was taking place: would a blond come for me?  Or would a darker woman come for me?  Bleakness versus darkness—and, well, I considered myself a little dark—so it seemed that bleakness might have been a better match, given my desire for someone that takes life seriously.  And why wouldn’t they?  the person that we are in this life is a general indication of the person and the life we share in the afterlife—so that’s important.  But nobody could top going with the president of the United States—a woman that would save me the current tab of 643 dollars a month for health insurance, making it impossible for me to save money for the future.

    this is Ursula  holding on, now, to repressed parts of me?  like what?  solving the Riemann hypothesis? which wasn’t even the main objective—the main objective was to use the hypothesis to prove or argue in favor the afterlife and the possibilities of contact with the dead.  what about writing triple notes for the piano?  Scales?  the sky was the limit—but what could music do for me existentially?  Granted, my newfangled experience was coupling with the way i write—but what did it have to do with philosophy, physics, and, most importantly, the future?  i felt the ground shifting a little—i was changing, perhaps, in part, with the reduction of Lexapro—i was a few days in, now, so part of it should have been leaving my system.  May have been getting  a few more erections at night—but no feeling of desire; no chance at orgasm; no chance of invoking an erection—nothing much had really changed.  I needed to get off the Lexapro completely, and, because of my faith, I didn’t feel so drawn to oblivion; on the contrary i was motivated to learn as much as i could, and take it with me, in the life to come.  i needed, to be clear, to get off the risperidone, or, for the time being, at least, cut the dose in half.  But I wouldn’t be able to do that without working with my doctor, which wouldn’t happen for another five weeks.

     Working on Zoom which is an app that lets you see and talk to each other through your screens; it was important—and i was the only person that could do it—and i was worked up, i had all this restless energy from being out of my routine and doing something that was similar to what we do in telepathic communications.  but who was i talking to right now?  i suppose the best way to talk to multiple people in a meeting is to intone my voice on the consonants and the vowels at the same time and wait for different voices to sound off, but I wasn’t interested in that right now—I wanted to talk to Ursula.  pass me the mic  so she wanted to speak to everybody that i was connected to?  if that was what she wanted then fine; i would listen for other voices too, so i did, right then, which, well, if she had the mic, then i should be projecting her voice alone, right?  On both the consonants and vowels.  So I did that.

    tuning into Ursula, now, still using our passwords to signal that we were “online.”  you think you love me  was she gaslighting me like my last girlfriend did?  trying to tell me that I’m a closet case that needs to do some soul searching because, well, I didn’t want to have sex with her until she lost all that weight—and, because, of course, she was standoffish, didn’t take care of herself, and, perhaps most of all, she had no patience for a man that is impotent?  it’s a relief, actually, that I didn’t have sex with her—she proved herself beneath me.  suddenly my mind went haywire, as I listened in, and I couldn’t help but worry about many of my canvases having not shipped yet—and when I should go online and torture myself trying to figure out what is wrong and when i can expect them to ship.  I interpret that, in this context, as me worrying about whether or not I’ll be able to get Ursula pregnant before she hits menopause.

    day 1: 5 mg instead of 10 mg of Lexapro.  Known to cause constipation and force sexual side-effects, such as not being about to have an orgasm, which, as a man, once, would have been difficult to imagine.  so what was changing?  Well we were only about five hours into it, but over the past few days we’d added bottled green tea into the rotation—something to slow down the escalating water and Dr. Pepper drinking.  Am at 3 cans of Dr. Pepper; need to be at 2, i think (for my teeth).  several cans of water a day was just getting expensive—and, anyhow, i didn’t want to depend on it.  I needed to be able to work without the constant stimulation of the back of my throat—forcing out dopamine, that, honestly, was probably getting blocked, in large part, by the risperidone.  But let’s get real: at one time i might have had interesting thoughts—but I couldn’t control them, and they usually involved getting persecuted by some hateful reality of people that were constantly dumping their back on me.

    risperidone love me, and risperidone love me not; she loves me, and, therefore, risperidone does not—unless a miracle happened, such as seeing you seeing me; how you channel your desire—making a weapon out of it, something you can use to bludgeon your mate into submission—my genes, my way.  but you have your genes, too; very funny, Ursula, but what would you say if i told you that, in the future, long, long into the future, my kin and kind would be unisexual—getting themselves pregnant, so their genes can rule, and, well, “that’s my whole reason to get you in bed—to make you want it so bad you do whatever i say.  raise the kids how i see fit—that kind of thing.  so risperidone—stuck with you for another six weeks, at least.  Maybe she’ll keep me on it?  Because of the antipsychotic potency?  there must be another way.