End of September

We're sitting in my kitchen. For some reason I'm not tired. It's way past my bedtime. The cat sits on his lap, his cane before my legs, my sweater grey and cabled, his hat remaining on indoors. We alternate stroking the cat, him, then me. I take the cat. He cups his hand on the top of the cane. Leans it between my knees. I look at him for a long time.

Still haven't said anything. I hate the way certain people make me silent. Everything he says, even what's beyond my understanding, I pretend to grasp. Certain philosophies. Mathematical equations. The robots built at a friend's. Sometimes I ask him to explain. He starts, trails off, and mumbles something about how it would be too complicated, in that low voice that made phone conversations impossible years ago.

Maybe I am the overman.
Der Uebermensch. I know this one.
Yea.
Well, isn't that a little cocky?
He shrugs.
I try to remember what Nietzsche said, but all I can think of is the fishtank on my wall, the lonely goldfish and the abyss, the product of a depressed drunk night. I mention this.
Oh, about how when you stare into the abyss-
-The abyss stares back at you? Yea. I started to wash it off my walls, but it's still visable.

I have no idea why I still want to fuck him. Like I'd have any power in this. Like this would be any different. I want this to be effortless, I want to have the upper hand, I want security and things my way and to not have to think about things. And none of that is the case here.

When the door slams my whole house shakes. In my bedroom my pillow hums as my roomates walk in. I'm always touching a wall in my room: leaning upright in bed, foot tapping under my desk. The kitchen, I am an island, a free agent, where we float among papers and jellybeans and cardboard boxes. I keep on expecting to hear someone walk in, am waiting for that interruption to resonate within my body. But it is 4 in the morning. Everyone else is asleep. I feign exhaustion. I'm sleeping, are you? He shakes his head.

No, I'm resetting my cicadian rhythm.
You can do that?
Yea. It only takes me a day or so.

I feel as unmoving and unadaptable as a stone.