11:42 on a Monday night. A banana is depleted, not ripe, just emptied into my liver, not alcohol, just three Michelob Ultras, not potassium, just alcohol.
She was repulsed. My hand was left unheld. Was it me? I could tell it wasn’t. I asked if she was on her period. It wasn’t a question. Yes, I can see it. I can smell it. I can smell the blood and hormones and cramps and pain and the tears not yet able to fall.
Do it. Cry. Yearn. Want. Love. Ask for more until it’s enough. Because I can’t. Your vulnerability is poison to me. Your tongue wraps itself around my mind and licks parts of me I have yet to find. In due time.
No one understands heartache. What are my words trying to say? Like crying in the rain. There are some sounds that you can’t hear. There are some eyes that cry no tears. Mine are so fucking dry. I feel it. I feel it all. Shit inside me Activia can’t get out. I’ll wake up tomorrow with the walls still intact, hell, restricted and reinforced with booze.
The pen keeps going, detached from my hand as if it has anything to say, empty of value to provide but its empty promises and platitudes, things I pretend to want to do, realizations I haven’t had, advice I’ve given but never received, dreams that stop me from being awake.
One dream in particular holds me back. Being a plus in a life other than my own. It’s hard to believe there is no girl waiting for me. There are plenty wanting for. There’s treasure close enough that if I keep digging I’ll find it.
Or I won’t. I’ll come up empty again. Nothing in my pockets. Just sex and a new service care provider letting me know I don’t have any STDs. That’s a lot to show for it. But I’ll have more. I will. Die.
I can’t get away. No. No matter how hard I try. No matter how far I go. My shadow follows me. You’d think by now I’d be alone. You think by now I’d have somewhere to call home. You’d think. So would I. And we’d get nowhere because of it. Thinking all day, as if it matters. I’m going to think so much tomorrow. At nine. At ten. At eleven.
I’ll drink until it all gets too heavy. Until my shirt is no longer just heat but another body on top of me, hugging and holding me as if it were the life I’m after. But it’s not. It’s a dirty button down with sweat stains in the blistering sun. I’m a tomato walking even though I look like I’ve just come from a run. The shirt is an obituary. My body is a coffin. I’ve died long ago. I don’t know where I’m going except that I do. A sorry grave. But there are no apologies when I’m dead and buried.
I’m not searching for an answer. I don’t have any questions. If I did, I’d feel better. I just have statements written in a pen I received from the girl who resents me.