It's
like prison. No other way to describe it. No matter what
my plan
of escape is,
there
will
always be
three
walls and a barred gate keeping
me here.
I
went out last night with a friend to a bar where the women hung out
with men twice their age, and tried not to betray their disgust when
the withered old hands snaked around their thin waists. Fathers living out some sick fantasy about their daughters, and the whole
time my friend kept egging me on.
“Go
on man. You're like, better than any guy in here.”
It
was the kind of rah rah, go team go bullshit you'd expect from the
well meaning friend. The equivalent of a two man pep rally. He didn't
understand where my head was. The whole time I kept thinking about
how I couldn't possibly compete with the kind of green these guys
laid out on a daily basis to their ex-wives just in alimony, let
alone on their arm candy. No one in their right mind would even want
to. Those women weren't there to meet mister right, and those guys
were only there for the girl of the night.
So
there I was, standing in a crowd, my hands at my sides, standing
still. I was careful not to move in the off chance I might bump into
someone as we watched a cover band do their best impression of
another band who did it better, and all I could think about was how
much I hated this scene. How much I hated it years ago, and how much
I still hate it now that I am single. The heads of men bobbing up
over the crowd like a spinning buoy, surveying the sea of bleach
blond and tight night dresses.
Last
week is a mystery. I drank like I was trying to die, and maybe I was.
Maybe that was the point. I drank long islands by myself until the
night was a slide show of events I don't remember the order of, and
at the end I threw it all up.
I
woke up in my bed, and I didn't remember how I got there. I went
outside to check my car and there were no dents, in fact I parked it
perfectly. It was like a magic trick. On the driver's side window was
a little spot of grease, like maybe at some point I passed out in my
car, and fell asleep on the window.
I searched the house, the parking
lot, and my van for my missing glasses and they were no where to be
found.
My
phone had a crack in the glass covering the camera and there was a
video on there that I had recorded the night before. The only
evidence that a night had even occurred.
I
hit play.
A
bleary eyed me looked into the camera as I walked through the streets
of my neighborhood.
“You
know what I hate? I hate that I have to do this.” I said into the
camera. “I hate that I have to be here another year and that I
spent so much of my life waiting. Most of all...”
The
video flipped and streaks of street lamp light blurred across the
screen and everything went black with a cracking sound. The me from
the night before cursed his stupid clumsy fingers, and the video
ended.
She
messaged me today. She asked me how I was feeling? Was everything
okay? I answered back with one word: lonely. She told me that it
would get better, that I should just give it time. She said that her
life was crazy, and that was the end of the conversation, if you
could even call it that.
I
picture her going out all night to bars with her Jersey friends,
living it up. Newly single, ready to mingle, the kind of carefree
living afforded only from living at home with your parents. She was
able to move on, the center of attention of all her would be suitors,
all men wanting to stick their fingers inside her, and here I am
staring at a blank page trying to figure out how best to channel my
rage into something productive. Lying to myself that if I just stay
busy it'll be alright.
I
must go out to meet people, that's what my mother tells me. I must
work out, get in shape, I must do this, I must do that, but at the
end of the day, these four walls are my prison, and even when I
leave, in my mind I am still here.
