my friends are troubled, my friends are far away. my friends have death and heart murmurs and loss on their minds. my friends are as confused as i - they are theorizing why it is that everyone they know feels so shitty everyday - like there is some purpose behind it and we are all being put to tests by things outside ourselves and we are trying like mad just to make it through to tomorrow and tomorrow and the day after that. everyone is confused and they are trying to make it through their lives intact, but it is all getting harder allthetime - it is getting harder, it is getting darker and our definitions of ourselves are blurring, they are distorted, we have distorted visions of ourselves - now and in the future - still, we will be always trying to make sense of everything and failing miserably. we feel so pathetic - our attempts so languid, like in dreams when your fist feels disconnected from your body and when it lands punches soft as child arms and lighter than the masseuse folding his fingers into flesh. our minds have gone flaccid from too much struggle, our hearts are slowing and sleep is touching our imaginations. i would like very much to see my planner with each day marked off by "stay in bed" or "lay down in the grass". i watch the sky changing - autumn is coming; autumn is here, the smell is in the air and i keep thinking that it is still summer and that september should be green, yet dry leaves are already licking at my doorstep. i cannot imagine that the cold weather will do any of us any good. i am afraid that it will try to consume us, the lines of our brains taken over with a willingness to hibernate. i am afraid for myself and my friends. will we survive ourselves, our minds, our apathy and our urges to surrender? can we avoid the snow covering over us? can we keep moving enough to not be buried? the clouds have shrouded the sky - as though it were winter - and the heat has diminished by degrees, five and seven, mercury slipping. in the office, the air conditioning has remained, making it necessary to wear thick clothes and making it wonderful to get in the car at the end of the day when it has been in the parking lot, on the asphalt, soaking up what warmth it could.