Calendar

A dark account of a state of mind. Hopefully not poetic masturbation, but you can be the judge of that.

My calendar keeps getting shorter.

Years back, I began to erase the dates

On which unfortunate events had occurred:

A death, a disappointment, a fracture in my ankle to prevent hiking that spring, Hitler’s birthday, a high school reunion when I slept with Jeremy at last, and it turned out he did it on a dare, and wasn’t that so funny…

I haven’t simply used white out, or black lines to cross through the days.

I’ve ripped each day away from its page, square, alone, clinging to none of the good days left, unable to infect them with misfortune.

My birthday needed to go, of course, Mother’s day as well. It’s a silly holiday anyway, don’t you think? Useless for most of us. Twofold useless for me, now. Twofold useless. Useless now.

Valentine’s Day is gone, having always ended tragically. The 12^th of May, the last two days of June, and any evening that bore a full moon.

I look at my pure calendar often, yet each time I find it impossible to leave alone. There is always something that happened, if I think hard enough, something unpleasant, some memory that haunts that day, some ghost standing in that window to my past.

Those days are becoming more frequent now, and my box of unfortunate days is slowly growing.

More checkered than a checker board, my calendar waits beside my bed.

And when that last pure day is gone, I’ll put a bullet through my head.