Dedicated to Jeff

You’re better than the state he said, the silence that followed allowing the thought to clench him at his temples and stare into his dark brown retinas, peering in and searching for a reason for this sentence not to be true, the words floating before him cartoon bubbles dissipating because of the lack of response. Somewhere he knew that it was true, that he should have been more, could have done so much. People kept pointing it out and he knew they were right, he got defensive because he knew they were right. Seriously you’re a smart dude, you should write. The chances of being a successful writer were almost the same as being a successful singer, it was like saying hey you should become a rockstar or a basketball player. You should leave the comfort of the cubicle that you loathe and try something that you might enjoy, but the vision that he saw was failure, teetering between complacency and failure which side does one lean to. Long halls splattered with sweat and blood, stories strewn across the floor, all leading to a locked door, forced to sleep outside of it crumpled into a ball of failure and an equally wasted life. He knew that this life that he was leading did not fit him, the gray tones of the cubicle walls, the desk that acted like it was wood but in reality was plastic, just like him the kid who acted like he was an adult, portrayed a veneer of efficient office cog, when all he wanted to do was throw a wrench in it and watch it burn. He thought it was normal to not be what you wanted to be, to accept what your life had become and try and find some sense of happiness from the shattered pieces of his new reality. He was sure that his father never envisioned the life that he ended up with, the alcohol being his way to seek solace and release from his long work days and the bickering that greeted him after his work was completed. Who’s life ends up where they envisioned it would? Who has a path for their life already mapped out? He was aimless staggering towards something, or nothing, he hadn’t decided yet and he didn’t think that he had to, what is the deadline for a successful life, and what or who determines whether you are a success or not. This was all just games, he played them in his head he thought about it all he just didn’t know it was so evident to everyone else, he knew he was complacent, he had no fire, no motivation, no catalyst for change, he sat outside on his patio as the smoke, yellow and thick curled out of his mouth and walked up his face. He thought this is the focal point of my day….death, and he knew it was morose and exaggerated, his world was not an unbearable world, which might have been part of the problem. Maybe he rushed towards death to not have to plan his future, Where do you see yourself in five years? Dead, end of discussion, no planning of drape colors, no picket fence or even a career to worry about just darkness and cold, a blip on the screen unsubstantial and unimportant. No footprints left, just an empty cubicle waiting for the next occupant. With all of this in his head he continued on the same way as before, waking in the morning, sitting in traffic, sitting in his cubicle, and smoking and smoking regurgitated themes and days, leftovers from last week, standing in line at the cafeteria he reached past the possibility special and grabbed the complacent sandwich. The first bite shed tears of college idealism, but by the end of the sandwich, after weeks of the sandwich he ate it because it was there, because it was easy and did not require much from him. He was becoming a shell that wandered the hallways of the office, conversed at the water cooler and went home to what he had never envisioned, life taking paths that weren’t planned, welcomed, or expected. On his way home from the office, spray painted in white on the side of a freeway embankment it read, “WAKE UP” he yawned and lit another cigarette