Radio Silence

Originally published on October 24, 2016

Never really thought the ghosts would come out of the woodwork like they did, when we got to the third date, and the jazz kept playing I wondered if maybe this was the ticket. That she would feel the slow roll of love without the constant game of what's your name. I didn't count the age of the wine, or the way the night kept going after I fell asleep. It was more like the second side of the record, where if you don't listen to the tracks all the way to the end you miss the joke. 

I missed the joke.

Not gonna lie, didn't expect the wound to bleed unendingly, for the belly to be so tender when the knives came. It's like that song, you know the one with the static at the beginning, and the low hum that never ends as you drift off into conversation, into the warm bosom of sleep, or the hot limbs of something sweet. I never thought the burn would be so bad. But then, oil burns usually hurt worse the second day, or the third.

Gotta be honest, if we're at last call. Bartender, you've always known me best. I've always known you would be the one to see me at the last moment. That when the day came, and the last night was here, that you would be the voice i heard when the lights went off that last time. When the neons die out, and the cold winds blow. Here we find ourselves. Alone and naked on the street.

Surround yourself with love, with the sounds of the birds in the trees. Build yourself a cabin in the woods, and fill it with light they said. I always tried to get there, but the light of the window in your apartment kept me forever sitting in the front seat, jerking off to my failed expectations, more of myself than of you. But I guess we had to meet somewhere in my dreams for me to feel this let down, it sure wasn't in the bright light of morning, or in the white sheets you so lovingly never folded.

I always knew if only I could get there, it would be awesome. but I suppose that's the crux of depression. That you die knowing there is something better for you out there, you die with the map in your hand and not enough gas to get there.

This window shattering isn't surprising. It's the amount of glass in my own skin that's killing me softly, slowly, and not so silently. It's the burn of the wasted weekend, the wasted sleep, the wasted hope. The notebooks full of pictures of you that I won't really ever revisit, a final exam I know I won't ever take now. The sound of your door closing, it's that, that I can't really ever forget. Not sure why the smell for that lobby is so strong in my memory. Maybe it's because you never asked me to stay, not once?

But the taste of nothing is a taste I am growing very used to lately. A lot of teasing, and a very little bit of satisfaction. I guess this is how your find the words for fuck off, and I guess this is how I find the words for goodbye.