Alone in a Rut

Every night she does two things: ice cream at the place down the block, and a cigarette outside of the place down the block. She doesn’t really enjoy either one, but she practices the ritual religiously. 

A type of religion that keeps her wanting more. That, at least, is good for her. 

She and I are the same, stuck inside each other. I swear I haven’t changed in 15 years. I still cry about my life from 15 years ago, I still don’t want to make any friends. 

I was 15, now I am nearly 33. I was a child. I’m still a child. How embarrassing that I wasted all these years tied to one specific reality. 

I should have mourned the situation and moved on. You mourn, you move on, that’s the way, but it was too painful to me. So, I held onto it tight, like bike breaks going downhill, but you don’t want to go too fast. 

The emotional grip has left red marks in my skin. Something happened to me, that’s ok, and it’s also ok that I’m having a hard time letting go of it. 

They’ve put me on medication to dull the sensation. Now I’m antsy, and bored, and depressed. My writing is suffering, I’ve started to rhyme and I can’t stop even for the sake of a plot. 

Plot lines are difficult, they always grow heavy and make me too tired. I cannot go further. 

My brain hits a wall, and it cannot, will not go further. 

I’m stuck in my current, but I wish I was here in the present. I want to run into other people there too. 

After too many years, alone in a rut, it’s become my normal. My normal brings me pain. 

I wish I could be alone again. I’m alone, alone, alone, again. 

The plot is hazey, too much in my past that I cannot be in my present. There are people in my present. Places, things, and ways to look forward. 

I cut all those off from myself during my delusions, my mania, all the things my medication works to keep me from. 

Does it keep me from happiness too? My sources of joy, or were those just symptoms of mania too? If nothing about me is real, then there might not be a person inside of my skin suit. 

I want to smoke a cigarette, but I gave them all away. There was a homeless man on the street who wanted one, and I’m tired of the way that they stain my teeth. The left side neighbor in my apartment building hates that I smoke. He knows that I do, and he hates it he hates it he hates it, and his wife hates it too. 

I’m not allowed to smoke inside, or on my balcony, or 20 feet from the building, and they fucking know if I do. They can smell it, they say, they have sensitive noses, they tell me this about themselves too. 

I have a sensitive nose, and sensitive feelings, and I hate that they hate what I do.  I wish I could smoke a cigarette on my porch,; and not have any care of know of have any clue,; because I am free to do what I want to do. That’s not what this has been about, and not what my life has allowed me to do. 

I am selfish and that’s why I do what I want to do. I am individual and without community, it’s why I do what I do. 

Plot is hard, and nothing can be seen in muddy water.