an opaque letter to you
surrounded like an igloo by the scent of bourbon and cigarette butts i awoke, watching my breath in the cold crisp air. i had no idea how i ended up asleep face down on my porch, but i didn't care nearly as much about that as i did the piercing sunlight exacerbating my headache. i stood shaking and went inside more to avoid the sunlight than to warm up. aside from the throbbing of my head, i was numb. i went to shower but once in the bathroom a wave of nausea hit me so i just lay down in the tub. i did that for the next few hours.
it's a funny thing, drinking to forget. i hit a stage of drinking when i'm in a certain mood when i know with certainty that i am going to do things i regret. in the past the regret of those things would eat and gnaw at me for the entirety of a hangover. i would fret about wronged parties, broken property, blown money. but i found a workaround. when i feel that coming on, i drink... and then i drink some more. i do not stop drinking. it leads to mornings like this - i am filled with regret, yes, but the regret of having drank so much that i now feel like this. i do not regret the things i did last night, they do not bother me right now... i do not remember them in the slightest. it's true, i drink to forget... but i also drink to regret.
a quick but unnecessary check confirmed that she had not contacted me at all yesterday. not that i had expected she would, but i still check behind closet doors and shower curtains for something supernatural lurking, too. it is a huge divide how little i expect to hear from her on my birthday and how large and impending her birthday is for me. it sits there on the calendar screaming at me, mentally highlighted and circled and glowing, monumental, like christmas or the anniversary of the death of a loved one. my year is broken up into Before and After that date for that date is hope and dread... that date is an excuse for me to contact her, to let her know i exist, that i am thinking of her... all in the guise of wishing her a happy birthday. that date allows me to employ my trojan horse of well wishes.
what is amazing is how easy it would be to just contact her at any time i want... but the gulf between saying "happy birthday" and just reaching out to her any other day is a gulf so wide that the United States Army Corps of Engineers would immediately dismiss it as impossible to span. there is nothing to be done but wait anxiously for that day to arrive.
how different that day is from my own birthday. it disappears in a blur, unremembered, by design, year after year. i regret ending up asleep on the porch, yes, but that regret fades with a shower, a meal, the forward progression of time. it is little more to me than another year that has passed. it is not the demarkation point it could be - that point is already etched in stone.
i walk back out into the cold sunshine. regret faded and hangover abated the day is beautiful. my birthday is over, passed by seamlessly, expertly folded away into all the other days of the year. almost every other day, at least. the icicles are starting to recede and soon it will be spring... and then it will be summer...
it's a funny thing, drinking to forget. i hit a stage of drinking when i'm in a certain mood when i know with certainty that i am going to do things i regret. in the past the regret of those things would eat and gnaw at me for the entirety of a hangover. i would fret about wronged parties, broken property, blown money. but i found a workaround. when i feel that coming on, i drink... and then i drink some more. i do not stop drinking. it leads to mornings like this - i am filled with regret, yes, but the regret of having drank so much that i now feel like this. i do not regret the things i did last night, they do not bother me right now... i do not remember them in the slightest. it's true, i drink to forget... but i also drink to regret.
a quick but unnecessary check confirmed that she had not contacted me at all yesterday. not that i had expected she would, but i still check behind closet doors and shower curtains for something supernatural lurking, too. it is a huge divide how little i expect to hear from her on my birthday and how large and impending her birthday is for me. it sits there on the calendar screaming at me, mentally highlighted and circled and glowing, monumental, like christmas or the anniversary of the death of a loved one. my year is broken up into Before and After that date for that date is hope and dread... that date is an excuse for me to contact her, to let her know i exist, that i am thinking of her... all in the guise of wishing her a happy birthday. that date allows me to employ my trojan horse of well wishes.
what is amazing is how easy it would be to just contact her at any time i want... but the gulf between saying "happy birthday" and just reaching out to her any other day is a gulf so wide that the United States Army Corps of Engineers would immediately dismiss it as impossible to span. there is nothing to be done but wait anxiously for that day to arrive.
how different that day is from my own birthday. it disappears in a blur, unremembered, by design, year after year. i regret ending up asleep on the porch, yes, but that regret fades with a shower, a meal, the forward progression of time. it is little more to me than another year that has passed. it is not the demarkation point it could be - that point is already etched in stone.
i walk back out into the cold sunshine. regret faded and hangover abated the day is beautiful. my birthday is over, passed by seamlessly, expertly folded away into all the other days of the year. almost every other day, at least. the icicles are starting to recede and soon it will be spring... and then it will be summer...