Presently,

my son is talking non-stop and my mom is doing her best to pretend she's already asleep. I'm in the next room, but if I had to guess, he's either sitting up and talking to her over her shoulder, or laying down and happily chatting up the ceiling. It's 11pm and I'm in the next room because I was hoping to get some work done tonight - 

there's that Brooklyn Art Project thing I've been putting off,

the New Yorker thing I was gonna try,

books I haven't finished/books I want to start...

I was hoping to get anything done. Here. At this brand new desk.

Lamp giving glow to my left hand and orange juice.

Chess set in shadows slumbering on my right.

Sketchbook in the drawer, untouched.

My phone (expensive ass paper weight) close by just in case. 

 

Nick's number has been assigned to someone else, I found out.

One night, the notification popped up

"Nicholas Tijerina is now on Duo!" 

and my heart climbed the nearest highest thing

n' jumped at scenarios as they swung past.

 

Maybe his family faked his death so he could rehab in peace.

Maybe he didn't die. Maybe I died back when I hit my head. 

Maybe this is all some horrible coma dream and I'll wake up

in some hospital bed with Nick standing over me

saying, "You scared us, babs. How's the bag?"

His number should be hanging from a rafter. Retired. 

Nobody should be able to touch that fucking number.

Metro's got a lot of fuckin' balls, I tell you.

 

This phone is the single most expensive piece of jewelry that I own.

Nobody lives there anymore.

 

Work? You really want to know about work?

I'd tell you, but I sort of need the job, ya dig?

 

11:25. I don't hear Herb talking anymore. Now. I really must get some work done.

 

It's a bizarre thing, Nick dying. I honest to God thought he was going to live forever. Honest to God, I thought we would have another child. That he would come around and want to be a family again. That he would get a handle on his drinking. That I would learn to be whatever he needed to keep us together. And even if that never happened, we had an entire lifetime to bug each other. But he died. He fucking died. In the middle of a pandemic of something unrelated to the pandemic. Classic Nick T.

 

Oh. Nope. He's still talking. (clever boy)

 

I didn't have to endure him meeting someone else. Marrying someone else. Starting a new family he'd care more about. And part of me feels like I should return the favor. Ignore all these awful headaches and bodily ills and die out of love as a favor to him. And probably that's stupid and probably I'm crazy. But it's just how I feel sometimes, doc. 

 

Here's a quick list of shit that hurts - 

 

Nerve pain in the back of my head.
Squid pain headaches in the back.
Migraine headaches up front.
Left leg feels pain in the upper thigh when I sit,

used to be in the calf, but it's moved up.

Bum hips that never quite recovered from childbirth.

PCOS making every month feel like a miscarriage. 

Oh. And my big toe on my right foot has been numb for months.

 

If I happen upon a small fortune, I promise, I'll go the doctor just as soon as I pay down the debt some. Or. I'll die and I'm worth way more dead than I am alive. It's true. Ask my insurance agent. 

 

This is a long post to say I'm not doing very well. 

I miss Nick so goddamned bad; I can't stand the thought of becoming some old woman while he stays the same goofball 37 year old. It feels like we should have gone out together. Falling off the top bleachers at a Rangers game would have been plenty romantic for me. 

 

Anyways.

I've got work to do.

I keep saying it, so it must be true.

 

Don't worry. I'm not going to die anytime soon.

That'd be some stroke of luck 

and I come from a long line of bums

fresh out of it.