Jude wades through the hot fog of exhales and sweat secretions of the Golgotha Club. Dodging this and that body, this and that melding of bodies entwined. Connec ted at the face or pelvis. Jude passes through the collective body. Through the mouth and down the challengingly narrow throat to the orchestral pit of the stomach. Sloshing around on the slippery floor. Into the digestive tract headed straight for the colon backed up with impacted heroin shit. The part of the club where no one's really doing much of anything but scratching the inside of this elbow or that one. Squirming but not necessarily moving. Definitely not keen or aware enough to allow anyone pass by. The smell of dirty teeth and sex and onion permeates even the most deviate of septums. No one seems to notice but me. My back is against the wall, as deep as you can be in here. Jude's eyes meet mine in the impacted shit section and they make one last push through the crowd, spilling most of our drinks onto this or that immovable body, making their getup all dewy like.

Jude is shyly under 70" tall with finger length auburn curly hair, square jaw, pouty candied lips, kissable little nose, and generally boyish from the neck down. Jude wears a ratty denim coat with vegan sheepskin collar, paisley green and pink navel length dress shirt buttoned to the very top, further flirting with strangulation with a choker of a black bola tie with silver ends, purple pants that cling to the skin as if they were perpetually wet, and run-of-the-mill work boots.

I've been flirting with the idea of wearing only white no matter the time of year, which I guess is still faux pas or a fashion taboo or whatever. I might be too ungainly for that sort of thing anyway. For now I am found in black jeans tight in the thighs and ass, rolled up to mid thigh, met by black leather boots sparing only an inch of black socks between, a totally average length black dress shirt buttoned to the top and a half open black denim jacket. Black-framed glasses propped up on my nose, my nearly black hair pulled loosely into a bun.

Jude sulks toward me with two half drinks. Their eyelids fluttering in the world’s hardest eye roll. It looks painful.

Irritated Jude forces the mouthful or so of club soda into my hand. They throw back whatever’s left of the brown liquor in their cup.

I sniff at my glass to make sure it’s not vodka or gin. I haven’t had a drink in years. I put the melting ice and half flat soda to my lips and suck it in between my teeth. I dribble it back into the cup.

“Jude, you’re certain this is club soda?”
Still annoyed Jude makes a growling sort of sound with their throat. “It better be,” they shout in my ear. It hurts and makes my ear ring.

They start off on a tangent about bartending, but I quickly stop paying attention. Jude’s voice turns into a half muted word salad over a staticky radio.

I’m almost certain that it’s tonic water. Tonic water has a weird syrupy element to it that lends itself to being not unlike liquor.

Still, I leave whatever backwashy thing it is on the floor between my feet.

Jude may or may not still be talking. I try to hone in on their voice and search for my cue. That being an empty space to fill. And I say the first thing to come to mind, “I don’t feel good.”

Jude looks disappointed. I say the next thing that comes to mind, “I have a headache. And…” I pause, and say like a guess, “My stomach hurts?”

Without saying anything Jude grabs my hand hard and drags me quickly back through the digestive tract of the Golgotha Club and we emerge like puke onto the street. It would have taken me at least a half an hour apologetically excusing my way through.

The air is cold and our bodies steam in it. Jude throws my arm over their shoulders and forces their thin body into my side. Jude looks around in the street and kisses me on the cheek where the jaw connects like a secret. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” Jude whispers.

The smell of Jude’s body hangs around and makes me feel somewhat drunk. I like it, I swear I do. I swear I want to kiss them right on their kissable nose and pouty lips. I try to smile because I know I should be happy, but I can’t. And I’m not sure why.

“Goodnight,” Jude says, like they mean “I love you.”

I swallow the spit in my throat and choke out a “Night.” I really do mean it like “I love you.” But it comes off either callous or insincere.

Jude wanders off into the streetlight pulling their vegan sheepskin collar over their ears and wraps their body in the denim like a smothering hug.

I immediately feel something like shame, but I suppose they understand. They must. I still feel scared and sad.

I hold the half of my jacket Jude was hanging on up to my face and breathe deep like.

I walk home breathing through it like a respirator until the smell is either gone or I’m made accustomed to it so it doesn’t smell any different than anything else.

I drag my body up from the street to the studio on the second floor and sit down at my desk. My cat follows closely, chirping and crying. I mimic her talking, sort of mocking her, but lovingly.

I write the word “intention” on a post-it note. I crumple it into a ball, place it into the palm of my hand, and flick it in the direction of my cat. She sees it for the object that it becomes, bats it around across the floor before throwing it down the stairs from my studio to the main floor where I eat and sleep and bathe and do nothing. And then down the second set of stairs to the street. Pushes it through the mail slot, delivering it unto the outside. Or otherwise suspending it in disbelief somewhere in the space between the wall and the bed or wherever lost things find themselves. Either way it’s dragged to the ether as if burned.

I write the words “all my love” on an index card, fold it into a sad looking jacket and throw it from the studio window. It turns up in the living room. My cat is rubbing her face on it, nibbling, trying to break its collar with her back feet.

I write the word hunger in the dust forming on my desk with my finger, my cat cries, so I feed her. When I come back to my desk it is clean.

I write the words “a lack of emotion regulation” into a word document, print it out and tear it into unequal strips, and then smaller square-like shapes. I shovel them into my hands and hold them up to my face. Trying to feel something. Happy, angry, or sad, I’m unsure. All of them, maybe. None of them, probably.

I make a drawing of something that looks like a tumbleweed and call it my name. I tear it into an oval shape and stick it to my face. I go down to the bathroom and stare in the mirror with my new face. This is what depersonalization looks like I suppose.

I take off all of my clothes and trace the curves of my half lumpy body with my fingers. I pinch my belly and say: this is real. I pinch my thigh and say: this is real. I reach between my legs and pinch at skin that smells like sweat and say: this is real.

I take off my new face and stare at a face that I suppose is my face with wide eyes until I shiver a little. I curl the lips and grit the teeth of the face that I suppose is my face and examine the gums for blood or abscess. I fishhook the cheeks of the face that I suppose is my face and look for cavities, spinach, or popcorn shells. I contort the face that I suppose is my face into a fake smile and then into a cartoonish look of disgust and hold it until I cackle. The face that I suppose is my face moves itself into a smile that isn’t quite so fake.

I breathe fog onto the mirror and scribble with my finger in cursive: “you are really something.”