A Drunken Episode

I'm floating in a dream. If I hold really still and don't blink, I can be somewhere else. Where would I go and what would I be?

An eagle soaring high above the earth searching for a delectable brown mouse to decapitate? A lonely cactus in a barren land 2 minutes before a dying man breaks me open in an unsuccessful attempt in finding that elusive liquid? Or the diamond baguette on the Hollywood starlet's delicate finger, whose misplaced love is reserved for her first pimp back in those dirty gritty streets of Chicago days?

Animal, vegetable, mineral.

No. I am a music note, black as death, on the crumpled, yellowing pages of a desperate 18-year-old's final attempt at sanity before he crawls into the tub and cuts his own writs. Born, but forgotten.

I am the salt in your insignificant tears that slip meaninglessly down your face in the darkened movie theater. An embarrassment. An irritant. A fly in the ointment.

You do not acknowledge me. You meet my eyes and you look away. You take me for granted and when I've disappeared you wonder where I've gone.

I've changed since then. And now you want to know me. But now I am the sun and you worship me. Who holds the keys to your happiness?? I am the oxygen in the air you breathe. I sustain you. But it is not personal, I am not discriminatory. I crush your existence.

And then I blink. Reality hits hard. But alcohol makes a nice cushion. "Straight up, 3 olives please," I slur to the bartender.