The Procrastination Method

How do you manage?

He asks.

How do you keep going

When it feels like your soul is breaking into bits

You can’t breathe

You can’t move

All you want is for existence to cease

When you forget that sometimes it’s all okay

Good, even

How do you survive?

Weather the storm, so to speak.

He smiles wryly, sadly.

I know he’s downplaying his desperate need to understand what I do.

I’m not sure I can explain

But I try my best.

Well, I sit there

With the pills

With the booze

With the pain

And I talk to myself

Like a nutso.

It’s all I know to do.

I say,

Not tonight.

Just go to sleep.

See how you feel tomorrow.

See how you feel in the morning.

And if you still feel like shit

You can do it then.

What’s the rush?

I pause, shrug.

That’s really it.

And so far, I’ve never felt as bad in the morning.

So far, he repeats. 

Yup. So far.

What if that changes? What if one day it doesn’t work?

A bead of sweat formulates just below his hairline.

I stare at it, fixated.

Shrugging again.

Hasn’t happened yet.

That’s all I’ve got.

I can tell he’s frustrated, that he thinks I’m lying, holding back…

He can think what he likes.

It’s not my responsibility to convince him of how I survive.

It is my responsibility to keep doing it.

Until I don’t.