Beerspit night. Wandered home crushed. Not by the commute this time, through Boston's sweating and humid teeming tunnels.

Just answered the phone, already fragile, and it was a hang-up call. Not any ol' hang-up call. It was a girl, a young girl, I could tell by her tone, crying, hysterical, into the receiver. I don't know her, she does not know me past being a wrong number, but now, as she redials correctly, I sit here devastated. She's babbling through her snot at the person she meant to contact; I sit alone, completely alone in this digital cold, and all I can hear is the ricochet of her sob, her half-single, half-second sob, playing bumper pool with the rubber emotions flexing too far in my head.

I'm an old rubber band right now. Stretched too far. If you look, you can see the cracks in me, about to burst, about to snap and end this tension. But, but, I will not go with a sting at her and her sobbing voice nor anyone anything else; I will simply go with a wry flick as I lob slowly through the air, land on the unclean carpet, and get tossed into the recycle bin, where I will be understandably ignored.

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