Someone told me that you can tell what a person is like by how he answers the question "who are you?" Some people will talk about their job, others will describe their appearance or personality, some will talk about religion. And so on.
    I don't think any of those defines me. If someone asked that question, I probably wouldn't respond.
    Who am I? I'm the kind of person who gets hate and love mixed up. I change my mind. I'm fragmented; the person I think I am and the person who lives my life every day and drives my car and brushes my teeth are very different.
    I don't like coffee. But I drink it every morning, two cups of it. It makes my stomach clench like my fist knotted through my hair, my lower lip pinched between my teeth. But I drink it. It doesn't seem to matter that it makes me feel sick, and it's probably staining my teeth, or making me fat, or giving me cancer, or- God forbid- ruining my chances of a Great Orgasm. Or some such bullshit that I'd read about in Self while I was at work.
I like the way the milk looks when I pour it in, sort of like fast-forwarded footage of storm clouds. I like the cup, heavy and warm as something alive, pressed between my palms. Sometimes I imagine its heartbeat under my skin.
    When I drink it, I think of it mixing with my blood and roaring through my veins, which is ridiculous because my digestive system and my circulatory system are two very different things. But if I had coffee for blood, would I still need to remind myself to breathe?
But then coffee goes cold. It looks darker, greyer, and sometimes there's this little arrowhead streak of milk in the very center, which always makes me think of the tokens which appeared on the Bubonic plague victims before their death of being poured down the sink, rinsed out, and placed upside-down on the top rack of the dishwasher.
    I guess you can see that things fit together strangely in my head.
    Yesterday, I went to the pond down the street. It was cloudy and silent and empty and I stood, pant legs rolled up, in the shallow water, looking at my feet on top of the pebbles. But then a fleet of ducks glided towards where I stood, surrounding me in an expectant cluster. We regarded each other, mammal and birds, until their anxious milling ceased when they decided I had nothing to feed them. They glided on, leaving only a few milky arrowhead streaks in the water, which dissipated in their absence.