Erin Murphy

Insomnia Chronicles XI

The night is full of insomniacs Googling insomnia. Inhale for eight seconds, exhale for six. Or maybe it’s six then eight. I like to wander through the grocery store of my mind choosing items in alphabetical order: asparagus, broccoli, chocolate. An article says American chocolate tastes like sawdust that’s been drowned in sugar and soaked with baby vomit. One cat between my ankles, another nuzzled at my side, a third off somewhere else, maybe nestled by a vent. My husband’s breath, how I hold my own to hear his, especially when he’s sick. Sometimes I roll over and touch him and he startles but then we find the dark pockets of our desire. Not groping exactly—more targeted. Heat-seeking missiles, the efficient pleasure of long marriage. There are not enough foods that start with D. What does baby vomit taste like? Dill, donut…The pang of what I said today and twenty years ago what I didn’t say. Micro-regrets. At a bar, we chatted with a man who had pocked cheeks and a bird’s nest beard. He wore the uniform of western Pennsylvania: flannel shirt, jeans, work boots. Turns out he has 23 indoor cats and spends $400 a month on food, not counting the litter for 13 boxes. Most of them was feral, he said. I couldn’t just let ’em freeze. The bartender leaned in for a whiff: And he don’t even stink like cats.

Shitshow

Shitshow should be one word

is a thought I’ve had at least

three times this week. Not

shit [stop] show as the dictionaries

and AutoCorrect insist. What

do they know? Shit is not modifying

show—it is the show and the show

is shit: tarry dung, inexorable

excrement. Yesterday, for example,

we saw an elderly man try to exit—

I know, I know disembark—

a luxury sailboat. Unhinged on one side,

the sliver of dock became,

with each step, a horizontal see-saw,

the already unsteady man teetering

left right left. Those of us sipping

margaritas at the nearby tiki bar

gasped but didn’t help. Collectively,

we did that thing where you faux lunge

with no intention of actually budging.

Sure, class was at play—a man

with a toy worth more than the homes

some of us were lucky enough

to almost own. Not it, not it.

Who among us didn’t secretly want

to see this Thurston Howell III pitch

into the brackish bay below? Which

of us was the show, which the shit?