THIS WAS THEN, THAT IS NOW ❋ Theo Thimo

I’m thinking about some difficult things, smoking weed as the nude couple on the third floor of the neighboring building installs an air conditioner.

It’s weird to me how much everyone seems to like sex even though I know how fun it can be.

I wake up in the evening and microdose 3g of shrooms when I notice someone sliding a letter underneath my bedroom door.

The ambiguous message reads, “THEO, YOUR RENT”

Still high, I reach the crosswalk and get excited about jumping in front of a bus when Tawny gives me a ring.

We drink shroom water during a midnight screening of 8½ before massages in Chinatown.

She tells me of how she’s attached a select few imageries to what she believes to be a fundamental structure of her subconscious.

The sensation she’s come to associate with the occurrence of these images causes what she says is an almost euphoric shift in her perspective.

Declining oral sex, my session ends early and I help my masseuse build a chair as we wait for Tawny to cum.

We later saunter towards the subway, unsure if we’re in love when I receive a call from an unknown number.

The person on the other end asks me to forgive them, explaining they’ve changed as a person.

This exchange leaves me feeling peculiar, and we both accidentally aboard the express and miss my stop.

After saying our goodbyes near Madison Sq. Park, I begin to walk South, not knowing of what to do or who I really am along the angry secrets of this cruel world.

All these rich people, I think to myself, I hate all of them.

They think money is annoying when it’s really just scary.

“Hehehehehe,” I lure a squirrel with a cinnamon roll.

“There you go,” I whisper, “you love this too much to care about anything else.”

Back home, I smoke an organic herb Tawny gave me that is known to entice a lucid dream state.

I feel cognitively aware as my body begins to lose consciousness before experiencing a vivid nightmare of a rampage shooting in a nondescript workspace.

Arriving 4hrs late to my job the next day, I’m on the first few bites of my lunch when promptly fired.

My ex-coworker, who bore witness to this, tells me everything happens for a reason before the manager informs him he’ll be covering my Fridays.

“Goddamnit,” he says.

I leave my place of work unemployed, with last week’s cheque in my pocket and little semblance of what my near-future holds.

I’ve walked down this street over a hundred times, but this time it feels like to somewhere new.

I wish I had drugs even though I’m already high.

Tawny sends me a text, “I’m a sleepy bird”

This world, there’s nothing like it.

I can’t believe I think I’m James Joyce when I can’t even tie my own shoes.

Bystanders photograph the sky where a plane draws a large heart before writing, “K. WILL U MARRY ME”

To all the other letters of the alphabet, I promise to always love you even if these clouds do not.