If I can cut the crust off of myself, if I can grind down the bits that stick out, smooth over the rougher parts, make myself frictionless and you can’t even notice me. I can make myself so compact that 

I don’t hardly exist at all. 

An impossibly fine white hair surrounded by a thicket of soft brown hair; the light has to catch me just right for you to know I’m there. I stare at the floor so purposefully and so thoroughly. I am camouflaged by it.

I can be perfect. 

Just let me get home, let me summon myself like a reverse superhero. The animals will run to me, they’ll receive comfort from me. I’ll pore over my failures, silent and meticulous and mournful. I’ll masturbate to women who, in a superficial sense, are just like me, because my fantasies never need to acknowledge their reality, so we neither of us exist. We’ll annihilate ourselves together. I keep it together. 

I will continue.