make a wire transfer for 25 dollars  don’t want to pay it, sunshine; “Are you mocking me?”  i’m not doing anything  let me get used to your smile—those carnivorous incisors that would keep you on your toes, but, by now, everybody knows you’re as good as they come, more beautiful, my darling, than any disingenuous outcome  ”how do people keep their teeth so white?”  So they didn’t smoke, for one thing, but i see them drinking coffee, they must have veneers, however and however much that works  i think i’m in the clear; love that loud lipstick, red as my lips.  i play a little dress-up to drive the haters away; or, even better, convince them, over time, to change their loving ways.

Divine love?  yes, divine love stood between me and nihilism and the addictions that went a long with it.  But what about this new-fangled addiction to soda pop and sparkling water?  Would my teeth be ultra-sensitive when i went to the dentist?  Would I get a whiff (or more) of excruciating pain?  What this came down to was: I still doubted that God exists a fair amount, even if a greater percentage of my heart and mind believed that he certainly does exist.  Now—if my meds were doing what they were supposed to do—and i felt good—then i had no reason to doubt His existence; but I did, and that is the crux of the biscuit.  I felt bad about this—and that made me doubt His existence even more because it made me feel worse.  So, what?  All of this means something—I stand by that, no matter the lesser doubt that I feel.  And that keeps me on my meds—and sober, and, when the time comes, a function of compromise.

   Ursula, Ursula, counting in my head.  Six more days to go until I change up my meds!  the way i feel about you hasn’t changed  so this is real life—but does she know that I live with my parents—and I like it here?  she must know that if she’s telling me that the way she feels about me hasn’t changed.  but i know what you’re thinking: his old meds are wearing off—he’s gotten used to them, his brain has adapted.  there may have been some truth  to that, since I was developing an expensive soda habit—several a day, now.  I’m an addict, what can I say?  Everything is so expensive—don’t know how I ever thought i was going to get my life to work when I moved out in the first place—thinking, back then, that I should be close to a woman, getting sex whenever, but i was always wondering whether or not i could get an erection, so, in a way, it was torture.  Add that to the fact that I had this secret homosexual (30%) box that I lived in—that I had to keep secret, and, well, you might expect that i’d have problems even without the meds to take my impotence to a whole other level. 

    Well, here we were: my mind was dominated by the anticipation of getting off a few things, getting my sexual health back, not being constipated, and losing ten pounds.  It was the main thing i could think of save how my new posts were doing on my social media accounts.  I heard a snippet, then, of my scotch uncle (my math uncle) but I don’t know what he said.  I’d been dealing with some Wi-Fi issues—nothing major but definitely annoying as i was clearly missing something—and so, once i got that settled, my routine had been disrupted, and I couldn’t focus well enough to apply myself to my math book.  I dedicated myself to my new book-length poem instead—shamelessly dense and prone to referencing various forms of literature that other people might not know anything about.  Those that did, however, I think, would appreciate it.  Maybe not any time soon, of course, but, I think, in the future, since, as a matter of fact, the future is where I live.

    The slightest disturbance can set me off; was that a confession? You don’t need me anymore; but I had to disagree.  It was possible, anyhow, that she wasn’t just trying to brush me off; she might’ve been feeling (fingers crossed) that she couldn’t make me happy.  Did she think, long term, that I would withdraw from the relationship?  Perhaps after having children around?  I always felt that my work was more important than anything, and, while that might be true if I was the only person around—I knew my work depended on the love I shared with others—and the ways that i expressed that love; communicating the love that we, as humans, feel for each other is how we not only get close to God—but it’s also how we communicate with him.

   Ursula, i think, would be so unhappy if . . . my default narrator said.  But “if what?”  He finished his sentence, if she wan’t a politician  what would she do, for example?  She’d  probably be depressed all the time and unable to sustain a relationship.  but maybe . . . but no—no buts about it; she was doing, thankfully, what she was born to do, and I’m only sorry that everyone cannot experience that.  But we needed to usher in the future, and the future looked like most work was optional because we were already provided for; you might not get rich, but you could live, and marry, and raise a family.  AI was going to do everything else.  so I asked Ursula, “What kind of love do you expect?”  And I was hoping she’d say a slightly volatile one—that was my game.  I liked to push and pull a little—working through neuroses and inhibitions that got in the way of total, uncompromising love for another person—digging into their back a little and reshaping them in our image.

    So I was basically just writing a math book at this point—everything you needed to know (and how you knew it) to prove that the Riemann hypothesis was true.  That meant, at times, it felt a little tedious, since I wasn’t doing anything new; but it was new to me—so it still kept me going for a couple hours a day, which, if you think about it, and you do it almost every day, is enough (probably) to accomplish your goals.  You also had to let things sink in if the material you were reading was kind of compacted, so, at times, it was best not to work more than two hours.  You’d risk getting ahead of yourself and forgetting everything much faster than you normally might.

    do you think you can keep up with me?  Well, no, actually, I don’t think I can; but that doesn’t mean i won’t try, and, if I can’t, i promise I won’t hold you back.  Ursula had this way of asking questions that she thought you might want to ask her; so she tricked me, a little.  My answer might’ve made her think that I wouldn’t wait for her; that I’d go on changing in some other direction without filling her in.  But i wouldn’t do that—and I was waiting for her right now, as she must’ve known, so I think she was being a little insecure.  A little insecurity is endearing; it’s as if people want to trust you, as if they believe in you.  But a lot of insecurity made the equations too heavy—there had to be a better way, and, often enough, there was.  But I knew that Ursula was only a little insecure—she couldn’t be the rising star that she is without having loads of confidence.

    No show  but I was here, at maximum.  Patience, friend  –  and i was all too pleased.  but my little dog kept passing gas—and, I thought: “How do I even have a dog?”  Ursula needed somebody to look after that dog while she was in DC, and, well, that person, given my work ethic, might not have been me—by choice.  But why was I looking for reasons to split us apart?  Because Ursula might stand in the way of some other aspiring young woman that I might dream into existence?  Because it made me look bad to crush over someone that I had no chance to be with?  But it was like going to heaven, I guess; we were together already, even if we never experienced our physical presence.  Maybe we wouldn’t even be together in heaven—but we could work with each other to probe the unknown and usher in an eventful future, one that prioritized family life—for each of us, no matter who our romantic other turned out to be.

    Get out of here in a hurry, before this whole thing explodes!  What whole thing?  was she feeling the heat?  I was still taking risperidone, so I wasn’t feeling the heat much at all.  But I’d had a couple bowel movements—nothing major, but enough to keep me from turning to bisacodyl.  A lot of constipated material, so, naturally, rather than deal with a toilet that I knew would clog, I was digging it out again, putting it into a plastic bag, and dumping it in the yard.  Hardly an ideal situation—but I needed a doctor’s assistance to get off the risperidone because I’d have to replace it with something else, and, on top of that, I needed something that was going to keep me sleeping correctly, and thinking healthy, noncompromising thoughts (as much as possible).