And while I'm digging through my mess of a car, its mess of bottles and cups I keep around so I'll have a place to piss at night, I think of how much I hate this. I think of how much I don't want this to be my life, searching for one item so I can shower, so I can shit. I think about my mom. I think about how I thought she would never let something like this happen to me. I think about how she pushed me into this thing that is happening to me. I think about my brother and how his vindictiveness in response to my anger led to his threats of detainment, of arrest, of losing all my possssions to a dumpster, pushed me into this car, searching desperately for this padlock like a dog that hasn't eaten for a week trying to reach a piece of rotted meat just beyond a gate. And then it's not like I blame myself, or maybe I do, but I feel an intense regret. Because once I'm done thinking about them, I think about myself, and if only I was less trusting, I wouldn't have taken those gambles on things like the coding "bootcamp" and the outdoor work that paid less than minimum wage wage. I wouldn't have assumed I could get the surgery I need once I finished that job.

I wish I didn't trust her not to let this happen. Not to make this happen. Because if I trusted myself more than I trusted her, this never would have happened.

And as I search, the stabbing in my stomach becomes more acute, more painful, and I need to go to the bathroom more and more and more. It's not as bad as other mornings, but it's starting to get that way.

It's usually worst once I leave my car in the driveway and all I can breathe is the backyard's mountain of dog shit. It hit me then. It's hitting me again. And finally I find my padlock. Exactly where it should be. But it doesn't matter anymore if things are where they should be. Because on top of them are piles of yesterday's activities. The necessities of the previous day. The fervor of searching for something else perhaps.

There is order that I maintain but it is constantly overwritten by overlapping order. Because there just isn't enough room for more than one priority at a time. Like going from a supercomputer to a smartphone. And my supercomputer was already aged and disintegrating.

I can't think anymore because someone is talking right outside the bathroom stall I'm in.