the bakery is closed. i want to quit my job.  i want everything to smell like vanilla extract and maple syrup.  Instead it smells like someone else's sheets, and cigarettes.  my mom texted me.  she said "the whole family is sleeping in the living room around the fire, come join us after work if you like."  But im wide awake and wishing it were daytime. i came home and the ones i loved had turned to stone, and on the counter lay a map, and a key to the station wagon, and a ticking watch so that i could see how long i stood there contemplating my options. And with every passing minute i scrutinized myself for not leaving.  And the only thing that held me back was fear.  And the fear grew and grew until  i was so scared that i ran.  i ran towards the sun but the sun was faster.  Soon i was alone in the night, which swallowed all the eyes of the strangers who had kept me safe, yet in the dark i glowed with being a woman.  I needed a bed, and i only found the park, but ended up in a bed anyways, with a man who knew me as well as any man ever has, and didn't and up hurting me as much as most men will.  I am still not a whole person.  I am an open wound.  I crave the water in people, but they are always balanced by salt. I should have learned this by now and taken up swimming at the Y or something.  But the Y just reminds me that i smoke.  And smoking reminds me of men.  I want a clear conscience so i'll just say i'm sorry as hell.