Driving home on a cold night.

It's eerie. Your gas gauge is straddling empty. Smeared blushes of night collect themselves around my car, hugging close--impenetrable shade. They sweep perilously about churning, black tires which threaten to suck them into a gyre of bitter demise. Thoughts of anarchy and blood are catalyzed by the subtle softness of scaling heartache. The heart whimpers; it does not thud--when did I last hear it beat soundly? Was it when our hearts were one? Alas!--Now two.

Such thoughts happen only after a great day. A day of happiness, thought, and meaning. You think: How ironic would it be if I were to die right now? Right when I feel as if I'm on top of the world (world, world). The thought sets in. Sinks in. Molten introspection splices open your pores. You would be gla--highway rumble strips pull you back to reality.

Doomsday thoughts subside. You are left to analyze the day. A weight is there, just below the shoulder blade: the unprocessed conscious of coming down from your "high". The mind must balance mirth and misery. The mind seeks to become destitute and unforgiving for a while because you have delved greedily into too much happiness. The lights of other cars pass by and they annoy you.

Someone said they were proud of you today. Someone said they liked you. Relationship kindled. Fire of passion burns. The night suppresses it. Darkness reigns. Omnipresence is tyranny. You pull off the highway, and turn on your brights. A green wall of forest guards the long turn of belittled back-roads. You are safer with the brights one. It pulls back the curtain: Thoughts become clearer--a meek knife is unsheathed against the dark. It offers no comfort, for what weapon may deter obscurity and depression incarnate?

The gauge begins to rest upon the 'E'. The lighted, plastic pin lays dying upon the end of the line. It has its finale: two sloshing quarts of gasoline.

There is the epiphany! As fire begets ash, greatness begets depression, and a whirling centrifuge infuses reality to a circle. The burning wonder of joy trickles slowly down into a muddied puddle of dour brown and sour black.

Your driveway flashes by. The slow-turning reels of realism increase in velocity. Acceleration spurred by melancholy and intense contemplation. Your house comes at you faster than you remember. You can see through the walls into the house where the lights are off and deeper darkness lingers haughtily. The crack of breaking glass. A distinct thud of crushing wood. The gas light comes on; looks like you're empty.

A little depression goes a long way.

Hello.

My name is Slight.

I have a problem with lying.

For clarity's sake: I lie too often, rather than not enough.

I need someone new who I haven't lied to yet.

Hello.

My name is Slight.

Now you know why we have met.

You are my clean slate; the bleached, plastic cutting board of my social inadequacies--the subject of my every whim. You will be what I need you to be because then I won't feel the need to lie to you. You will be amorphous; the misshapen guise of public degradation; the empty wine cellar--no charming, inebriated judgment lies on your slanted shelves. I am lain upon the guillotine, my future placed on the extreme line of a single juxtaposition: decapitation versus salvation.

I thank you in advance, my foolish reader, for you may help me to keep from a sharp drop, a quick jolt, and one hell of a rope burn. Mind you, I am not suicidal. I just need someone to tell the truth to. If push decides to get brash (and shove isn't there to console push), then the one who hangs me will be my morality, for I do not know how to tie a noose.

* * *

My English teacher told me out of the blue today that every great writer has a marginal amount of depression rattling around in their skulls. I took this as her saying, "You've got a chance." Considering the fact that I wrote my first essay on my untreated, bipolar step-father, I think she could tell.

I realized quickly that my best writing is not only motivated by a spark of depression, but enhanced by it. But I hate getting depressed... So is it worth it to write well, yet be unhappy? I have no idea. But I love when I write something good. And I guess it's not so bad when I sift through YouTube videos for about two hours with a half-frown, a bag of sunflower seeds, and an empty Pepsi bottle...

* * *

I want a Toblerone.

Have you ever had one?

They are delicious! The epitome of chocolate wonder. The diet killer. (Not that I am in any way akin to dieting... but one can speculate.)

I suppose a marginal amount of the candy's allure derives from it's shape: It's a triangle. Cool. And when hastily ripped from it's yellow box and tight foil, placed daintily upon my wooden desk, and considered with eyes but millimeters from it's brown, sugary surface, it takes on the imposing appearance of mountains. And then you eat it and it's all gone and you want another.

You would think mountains of chocolate would last longer.

Boo.

* * *

Sincerely, truly, candidly, and duly,
Slight.