Monday, February 28, 2011

1225 or 7994

I used to fuck this guy. We met outside of this club a mutual friend was dancing at. He had an Altoids tin full of various pills. He told me to take what I wanted; I only took one. I was pretty fucked up on vodka sodas and key bumps. I remember I wouldn't shut up about how I wanted to be a writer. He just listened. At the end of the night we exchanged email address so I could send him some work. Two days later he made me breakfast in bed.


I had just gotten out of this pretty intense thing that I was way to conservative in expressing my opinions about and led to me just getting destroyed. In hindsight I probably overreacted, jumping from barstool to stall to cab to bed, but it was the only thing that felt right. Sometimes I would be floating out of my body, watching and trying to figure out what exactly was happening in these dark corners I was spending so much time. This guy tried his best to pull me out of it. And he did pretty well. I still had some intense self destructive tendencies that would come out. There was a night in his apartment when I cut my feet up pretty bad walking on some wine glasses I had broken in an argument. I bled and bled on his hardwood floor while he begged me to let him help me. I just kept drinking vodka.

He was no boy scout either. He always had pills. All sort of things. Some nights we would pick a color pill based on how well it matched what I was wearing and we'd snort as many of them as we could. Sometimes my entire face would go numb and we would fuck and take shots of irish whiskey till I blacked out or wasn't numb.

And I heard about some of the things he did when I wasn't around. There were always whispers about one of his exes and what they did together when he was supposed to be working. After the third or fourth time I heard this I took one of his friends home to show him that I wasn't waiting around, that I didn't need him.

But I did. I wouldn't hear from him for a day or two and be convinced he was finally gone. Someone else would get his breakfasts. Someone else would get his text messages. Someone else would get him. I would sit around my place with a couple bottles of wine and whatever sad bastard music I could find and just fucking cry.

In the morning he would always show up. Everything was fine. There was work. Or a friend needed him. Or he got to drunk at happy hour after work and took a cab home and left his phone at the bar. I believed him every time.

Until the last time.

He didn't come over.

He didn't give a reason.

He didn't call.

He was gone.

I spent two weeks stuck in my apartment. I would go out for fruit and wine. I had a friend drop off pills. I broke all my light bulbs. I threw out the shirts he had left over. I took bath after bath after bath. I watched war movies and cried the whole time.

Then one morning it hit me. He was just a fuck. He gave me drugs and booze. He bought me dinner. He'd say nice things. But I wasn't the only one. I knew that. So I stopped caring. I stopped giving two shits about running into him, hearing about him at bars or seeing him move on.

That night I went back out. I made out with some nameless stranger in a corner booth. I bought myself shots. I danced with some friends. And I went home alone.

Monday, February 21, 2011

The taller the can...

It's not every day I sit in a booth at my job and talk to a coworker about if you had a plan for suicide. Today was one of those days. I like that she asked if there was a plan. Like my house was on fire and I had to get out. Or everything finally caught up to me and I had to explain to everything to everyone. A plan. Well, there are plans. There are scenarios, situations, dance step charts, and assembled pieces of puzzles. But it is no big deal. I also have a plan for the money I'll win in the lottery. And a map of places I want to take the pills I've collected. There are a lot of push-pins in that map. I'm not one to waste. Sometimes. I've been most comfortable drinking in bed. It feels easier then drinking in an empty living room with no tv on. I keep waking up thinking I'm in my old house, the last one, the last day. The day I slept in the living room on couch cushions. The day I burned a bunch of things and cried because all that was left in that fucking house was me and the pots someone else bought for us. I keep looking at my hands and seeing the blood of that guy I punched in the face repeatedly. I was protecting a friend I just made. I was getting out the things I was going to pay a man one hundred dollars a week to listen to. Fighting in the street is free. And doesn't ease your soul. I keep putting money in a box next to my bed that I'm going to give to the county because they caught me drinking and driving. I also keep whatever drugs I am stockpiling in this box. It's a poor-man's version of the drawer I remember as a kid. My bed frame is wide enough hold all the bottles and cans I've been having. So I put them there. The stack of boxes in the corner of the room is slowly collapsing. It makes noise in the middle of everything. I could probably leave it there for years. I just might. There is never enough of anything on a daily basis. I run out of all of it. My skin is dry. My hands don't shake. My tears only show up in bars and booths talking about places and procedures to making things right, atonement, or a cure for boredom. I drive at night, and at day, and bite the insides of my mouth to keep me awake, alive, and interested. I spit blood into a cup from a sandwich shop in the valley. I smoke menthol cigarettes that aren't mine and ash onto a freeway that isn't either. I don't shower for days. I'm an experiment in the unexamined life that is documented. I scream and punch and pout and throw tantrums. I borrow money and spend it on snacks. I sit in the cabs of trucks testing drugs for quality and price, suddenly more knowledgeable then I ever thought I'd be. I sneak. I steal. I lie. I beg. I decide my own fate on minutes of sleep and liters of booze. I listen. I bleed. I write a bunch of self serving statements that may or may not be true. I exercise.

Friday, February 11, 2011

New Clothes

It isn't so much the feeling of looking down at your hand and seeing your blood mixed with the blood of someone you just met. And it isn't quite this desire to rip open your own face in hopes of some dramatic releasing of crows. And I don't even think it is the possibility of someone making a crown out of newspaper and putting it on your head and letting you lead a parade of one down an empty street.


No.

It is about being comfortable. Being selfish.

I am not treading water anymore.

I am actively pulling myself down
-or-
I am actually going to shore
-but-
I am not standing still.

These things always start one place and end another. They are shit with directions. They are shit with sympathy. They are shit.

I am sorry I broke your heart.