insomnia
Tuesday, November 30th, 2004Let us be grateful for cigarettes that burn like miniature fires, and beer that foams and overflows like the sea or love. Let us be grateful for something small and stupid, something so perfect it can only be forgotten.
And I am happy that murder hasn't come to my house, that sorrow and hunger are not on my doorstep. I am happy that my life is ripe with the wonder of common faces, voices, human traffic.
Once in California, I was so hungry I stole oranges off of trees in the middle of the night. It was terrible because I managed to steal every unripe orange in the neighborhood. All these pale green rounds, tough-skinned, packed with alum, so dry and bitter they were barely edible. But I was content because I could eat, and I thought to myself, if this is all I get, if this bitter fruit is all I know of paradise, then I am happy. And look at all I have now. I am sick with happiness, and I want to pack up my voice and mail it off to friends so they can break it apart and devour it like good bread.
