A.

it lives and dies with this

insomnia

eyes sunken so deep
they devour oceans
catch the night on their lashes
pull it waking into blindness

It's Not Even The Weekend Yet

This is the part of the night when I try to get home without accidentally walking off a bridge or tripping into someone's knife.

The station's nearly closing - it's 10 - and still there's a gathering of people on the platform. Some have damp crescents on the necks of their over-washed white shirts. Some of them proudly sport the scent of women and cigarettes. Some of them have the rolled up sleeves of mediocre desk jobs, the wrinkled dress shirts of a little over minimum wage. Still not enough to buy a car though. A part of me wonders if they'd catch me if my knees buckled and I fell onto the tracks; after all, accidents happen all the time. I wonder if the blood would come right off, if they'd even try to clean it or if they'd just let it stain until time eventually wears it away. How many people kill themselves by jumping in front of trains? Honestly. They probably don't report every incident. This country doesn't concern itself so much with suicides; everything is either an accident or a murder.

Someone smells like alcohol. That's probably me, I don't know. I spill when I've had too much. Tonight was too much. Where is everyone. Where is. Where. I've got a phone in hand. Call someone. Call everyone. "Hi, I'm on my way home." Did they leave me here. Jeez. 

There's a five under the pebbles by the rails. I could reach for it and fall in and no one would know that I wanted to die.  They'll say I was too drunk to notice, that I made bad decisions but that it wasn't my fault. I might get the platform security fired. They might even blame my friends for not keeping an eye on me. "Hey, um. I just wanted to say hi." These people on my phone keep hanging up. "Yeah, I can probably call when I get home instead. I don't know... I might just fall asleep." Would anyone scream if I jumped. The train's pretty close. The station is vibrating a little. "It's okay, I understand. You're busy; I'm sorry."

It's okay. I can't say I expected to be able to hold a proper conversation. No one has the time or the patience to talk to me. They never do. Everyone's either working or playing or sleeping and look, some girls are coming down the steps. They can't be a day over twenty. Their skirts fringed an inch or two below their panties, shirts tight enough to leave very little to the imagination. One of them smiles at me. Almost completely sure it was me. Am I staring? I'm staring. Stop staring. There was this girl at the bar tonight who played beer pong with me. Afterwards, she grabbed me by the wrist and lead me out the door. She tasted like redemption, like eighteen years of recklessness, like long stretches of crowded roads and youthful impatience to find me. But I'm in a train station standing alone and she's probably having sex with her boyfriend in a parked car somewhere without streetlights. Would she mind if I slipped and broke my skull on something steely and rusted. Would she cry for some guy some night, almost too intoxicated to undo buttons. Christ, I smell like gin. 

Loneliness is underrated. I'm soaked through with alcohol. How does a person not self-destruct at twenty-one? I always thought I had options: so many ways to force a shut down. I could hang myself from the curtain rod, choke and break it, have my family walk in with my sister crying. I could run across a highway in busy traffic. They'd like a petty murder. It's someone to blame. I could aggravate a junkie and have him stick a needle in my throat. A better crime. Intent. Or I could jump in the way of an oncoming train drunk on a Thursday night, spent from school and necessary social waltzes, dreading the idea of a repeat performance. Well.

It's almost here.