The Every Nighters

This is one of the few places
Where people die on Tuesdays

What a weird fucking day to die, right?
But it happens

Because the energy that most places can only drum up
On a Friday or a Saturday

That dangerous, alive, kinetic, holy-shit-I'm-rolling vibe
That leads to destruction or enlightenment

Is present here
All
The fucking
Time

That's how I got into trouble

I simply cannot know something is going on
And not even attempt to be a part of it

So to live in a place where there's
Always
Something
Going on

Was just really not a good situation for me

I started hanging out with these people
That, like, in my head
I'd call 'The Every Nighters'
Because they just
Did
Not
Slow
Down

Like, ever

And it wasn't like they were superhuman either
They were just in a constant state of flux

It was like this fast-moving sports car
And all of us were on the roof
Like in some action movie
And every so often
Somebody would drop off
Like--Oh shit!--arrested

Oh shit!--hospitalized!
Oh shit!--parents showed up and took her back home
Oh shit!--dead, fucking dead, yeah, sometimes dead
And we acted like this was just life
Like, Oh, dead at 24
That's normal
That's life

Because we all thought life sucked anyway
So yeah, why shouldn't it end prematurely?

That's just part of the suckage
Right?

Yeah, right

And we weren't junkies
We were fucking cultured

We didn't shoot up in back alleys
We did it in cocktail lounges
And like, at book club meetings
I'm not fucking kidding you

At one point, I was part of a 2am Book Club

The Insomniac Reading Divison
That was our cute fucking name
And we'd talk about books we hadn't read at 2am
As if we'd read them
And then we'd do whatever else we were going to do

And the thing is
You don't need to be doing bad shit
To die
When you're up at 4am
Day after day
For, like, twelve hour stretches
Out
Running yourself so thin
Suddenly people are like--

--Looking past you

Because they can't even see a person anymore

You order at an all-nite diner
And the waitress just kind of stares at you for a minute
Like she saw your mouth moving
But she didn't hear the words

A cop stops you on the street
But he just keeps asking
What you're doing
Like he's your dad or something
Saying--'What are you doing?  No, but what are you doing?  What's going on?  I don't understand.  What are you doing to yourself?'

You look for an all-nite church
And can't find one

Funny, because in this city
There's an all-nite everything
But no all-nite church

All-nite post office
All-nite laundromat
All-nite yogurt shop
But no
All-nite
Church

And fuck--is it any wonder I slipped out of the hands
Of the good and centered?

And landeeeeeeeeeeeed...

Where?

Some morning
Some morning some day
Woke up
Smaller city
Must have driven there
Must have driven through, like, the night
Found a hotel
Not a cheap one either
Completed maxing out my credit card
But...

Safe

Safe and away

From...

Because the clock landed on me, you know?
And I knew it
And I wanted to keep going
Because the party was still going
And I thought
I'll just keep hanging onto the roof of the car
Until it whips me off
Because why not, you know?

Why the fuck not
But...

Somebody stopped the car
Somebody put the brakes on
And then...

And then I ran

Because when everything slowed down
Like...

Slowed
The fuck
Down

And you could really look at things

It was...

They were, uh, um, really fucked up hahahaha

So I ran
I drove
I landed
Here

And now I sleep better

I sleep so hard sometimes it feels like
I'm never going
To get up