The American Soldier
by Drew Pisarra
I’m going to get drunk on Ballantine whiskey and traffic in illegal firearms and stay in seedy, fleabag hotels and have illicit affairs with beautiful people already involved with marginally attractive other people who are corrupt and think money solves all their problems and keep their precious belongings in rickety lockers located in bus stations or train stations or athletic clubs or in safe deposit boxes or in safes. I’m so tired of being safe. I ‘m going to get fucked, literally fucked, and sleep with whomever I want whenever I want and sometimes even with those I don’t really want but just kind of want and not when I totally want to but sometimes when I have to and I want them to desire me and obsess about me and dream about me and constantly come up with new ways to please me, challenge me, intoxicate me, and call me so often I have to get my phone number changed. I want to change. I’m going to be sick, not with cancer or AIDS or alcoholism or post-traumatic stress disorder or even depression but with a disease that hasn’t even been invented yet, a disease that no one’s even had before and when I get it they’re not going to know what it is at first so they’re going to misdiagnose me until they finally figure it out what it is and then they’re going to be so surprised that they won’t know what to do except to name it after me. It’s going to happen. Just wait.
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