Subconscious word choice ruining my intended speech, I've been bucking up, ignoring feelings. I can't say how I feel anymore without implications, the insinuations unplanned, not meant, that could leave me utterly singular on this planet. The older I get, the more being alone leaves me feeling like a loser. But then, a thought: we're all just turning down the covers in our lives, ready to hop into bed, most of us hoping someone will share the sheets. Even if they hog the comforter, isn't it reassuring to know we've got someone who's comfortable next to us?
I'm by myself at this spot at the park where the creek, (as I pronounce "crick,") leaves some rocks dry stretching out off the bed, even when the water level's high. I come here to dip my feet in, to think and be as alone as I can be in the populated suburbs, while a family paddles by in a worn silver canoe, "Hotel California" pleasingly drifting out of some device on their boat. I catch sight of a yellow monarch as the music fades, and the family chatters down the waterway back toward the boathouse. Some animal I can't quite identify croaks as I ponder and the song changes and I catch sight of a black butterfly joining the yellow... Fluttering around the rocks, I see the mates hover low and inconsistent, settling here and then there, unsure of an ultimate move or placement. So I spark my cigarette, and lightly inhale the smoke, whilst on the path behind me a group of four or five boys walk along, discussing the general behaviors of "Villa girls," the students at an all-girl Catholic school where my youngest brother used to perform his hip-hop dance recitals years ago. They're apparently as uniform as the outfits they wear.
"Villa girls always... Yeah, all the Villa girls," I hear, when I see a second yellow butterfly, joining the first, and the black one. I don't for one second think my eyes have fooled me, but I do think the chances of this occurrence are rare, and I long for just one of the winged things to approach me, land delicately at my elbow, just to be able to see its lovely insect features in detail.
Later, maybe not even the same day, sometime out with friends somewhere, a bar or their home or something, where I’m drunk and feel alone in a crowd, I think, "I just want to leave, because it's nothing." I actually write it down. Feeling sick like teeth, tongue touching teeth, soaked in acid, absorbed, corroded, out of place; I'm void of life. But I stay, because it's my obligation, and since I want nothing of the empty bed in my bedroom in my father's cul-de-sac home on Sunset Ave. So I stick around, waiting for...? The sickening stupor to evade me, though I'm already consumed by it, I conclude. It’s not the company; they’re amazing, kind people. I've been trying to escape this all like the flick of a switch, reminding myself of mind-over-matter; reminding myself that no one will be able to stand my presence if I appear so blatantly miserable.
So I've stopped showing my feelings, pretending the ones I have don't really exist. Because if I don't believe it, it can't be real, right? I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life, so I simply must forge my way through pretending. And when I appear to be solid enough, maybe someone will flutter along the creek bed to the rocks I occupy by my lonesome and I won't feel so isolated in the crowd. But maybe not. Probably not. Optimism has never been my strong suit, but I can lie just as long as I have thoroughly convinced myself.
Mostly, (I believe to fix this,) I guess I just wish to feel surprise as it comes from someone else, like when you kiss a person who's so truly beautiful and hasn't the slightest inclination. The person who reveals their unworthiness to you and expects nothing from you but rejection. The way that in one moment they believe they're solely capable of disappointment, yet in the next, your lips meet, and all the hope that lies in the world coats them in a honey warmth, a sticky ooze overcoming skin with the idea that perchance, they might be something. They might be important. I want to bring that to someone, to feel their surprise at my kiss, so that I can share my surprise, my surprise that they didn't think they were worthy of me. I want to make them flutter, and I want to make them feel, and I want them to tell me every detail about every experience, worry, dream, idea, so I can fix in them the wound so intensely ingrained in me.
Mostly, (I believe to fix this,) I guess I just wish to feel surprise as it comes from someone else, like when you kiss a person who's so truly beautiful and hasn't the slightest inclination. The person who reveals their unworthiness to you and expects nothing from you but rejection. The way that in one moment they believe they're solely capable of disappointment, yet in the next, your lips meet, and all the hope that lies in the world coats them in a honey warmth, a sticky ooze overcoming skin with the idea that perchance, they might be something. They might be important. I want to bring that to someone, to feel their surprise at my kiss, so that I can share my surprise, my surprise that they didn't think they were worthy of me. I want to make them flutter, and I want to make them feel, and I want them to tell me every detail about every experience, worry, dream, idea, so I can fix in them the wound so intensely ingrained in me.
But don't for one second think my eyes have fooled me; because if I don't believe it, it can't be real. So tonight I fall into my bed alone, pull the covers around my neck and simper, because though optimism's never really been my strong suit, I think the only one that could ever surprise me--the only one whose wounds I could heal to let them feel again--is the girl laying here smirking maddeningly.
