I am tempted by things I know can only end badly.
Stepping into the shower, I turn the dial to an unholy temperature.
A normal person would flinch.
God & Man
A normal person would turn off the water.
Violently, I masturbate.
That night, I dream of a dark and deserted alley.
A lamppost flickering in front of me.
Moths dancing into the light, wings drunk with uncertainty, bodies welcoming death.
Me leaning against a brick wall and choking on a cigarette.
Heavy footsteps making their way toward me.
A thick hand wrapped around something intended to split my flesh.
The hairs should be standing up on the back of my neck.
My brain should be registering a predator.
Me, the prey, should feel inclined to fight or take flight.
I should aim at him like a feral catclaw, kick, show teeth.
I should scream toward the street.
I put my weight on my other foot and take a drag instead.
Good things come to die here.
Things grow here only to rot like peaches.
Have you ever seen what a fruit looks like after maggots are done with it?
Imagine thats what youd see if you looked at my insides and stared at my heart.
Imagine deadwood on breathing lungs.
Sometimes this body just feels like a space for all the emptiness inserting itself like cancer into my bones.
I cant remember the person I was before the person I am now.
Its a vacancy that makes me forget myself.
Its a sort of dissociation.
At the bar, I find the impetus my body has long forgotten.
I find it in lipstick.
I find it in music.
I find it in fleeting moments of laughter.
I find it in the tequila going down my throat.
I find it wasted.
I find it titillated by the cologne on a mans shirt.
I find it and lose it again.
Down the sink with all the contents in my stomach.
Bleeding out with my soul on mattresses that only leave me feeling cold.
The warmth dissipates with the sweat and I am numb again.
I am dizzy with ennui.
Suffocated by the languorous air.
I lay still and track the sun with the movement of shadows in my bedroom.
I come to it by contemplating bad ideas.
I think about it, but I dont.
Continuing to love him is catastrophic decision enough, but thats another tragic story for a different time.
I light candles, crush the tip of the match with my fingertips.
Then I book a flight for three days in Portland.
I spend it alone.
I spend it pretending Im someone else.
I spend it missing him.
I binge everything in sight one night.
I often tempt fate.
On special occasions, I ignore the warning not to mix with alcohol.
I celebrate my 30th birthday.
I toast with champagne.
I smile like I am not seeing my body mimicking John Everett MillaisOpheliain my head.
For months, I convince myself I am falling for someone Ive met; I even write about them.
I begin to think that there is something left yet.
But I wake up one day and dont feel a goddamn thing for them.
I realize now that I was just bored.
I buy another lipstick and I cut my hair short.
All I know is that it keeps coming back like a stray cat out in the yard.
Its a gray hair that keeps growing back no matter how many times I pull it out.
On those days, I dont want to be here at all.
I fantasize about about death, sometimes more than I do about other things.
There are times I find that thoughts of it bring me more comfort than thoughts of the future do.
I realize theres something about this that goes against nature.
Something I shouldnt be admitting.
But this is me at my lowest.
This is who I am in my darkest moments.
These are the realities of people like me that are seldom spoken.
I dont want to live life beneath a faux moons glow.
What Im saying is that Im exhausted of eviscerating myself.
I am tired of dying just by hiding whats inside.
My heart beats surrounded by an electric fence on all fronts.
Im a real third-dimensional human made up of secrets just like everyone else.
I am completely relatable to some and downright incomprehensible to their neighbors.
My truth is that it hurts to be here some nights.
I am pulverized by the weight of such heavy hollow on some days.
And still, Ive got this burning hunger for things I miss and for things Ive yet to know.
I am hurting here still.
It hurts, and Im still here, even so.
