(I went

to college early, a desperate fifteen-year-old boy in an orchard of overripe apples that smacked the ground with a thunk or thump or some other onomatopoeia, I don’t know and I don’t care what sound they made, the point is the dining hall was empty, green, and lonely as hell (hell must be filled with tropical plants—all that luscious heat would comfort me if I believed in it, if I could imagine him there without rolling my eyes (not that he belongs there, necessarily, no matter what my therapist says I knew what I was doing, like Jesus when He died on the cross, He wanted to go down into that cave for some sweet relief, because trust me, being a pariah is exhausting (His first death didn’t really count and I thought it wouldn’t count either if I was on top and it was merely statutory (I thought it’s not his fault he found me there friendless & in the pits of it (not his fault that I told myself it wasn’t that awful & couldn’t have sex for half a decade without a prozac panic attack rollercoaster ride & slobber sorry I’m so sorry so they always said no it’s okay even though that’s not what I needed to hear (even though all I needed was someone to tell me it was gravity that brought the apples down (gravity that goes on for all space and time (gravity that can never reach 0 (in fact, physicists say, if it did, everything would blow up again