There is something Wrong, something so, very Wrong, when everything I do I question the authenticity and the What am I Doing Here.
People begin their life after university. Mine ends; I live life as a trainee in a hexagonal comb, moving onto the next cell when the previous is full. There was a day, I was acutely sure, when I walked up the slope outside the Central Library, when I realised I would never be able to imagine myself when I was 32 because I was so far gone and so hateful of the concept of myself and having to live another day, and I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but we seemed to have arrived at the very stop, how peculiar, alight if you need to.
You asked me if I was okay and I wasn’t so I said I wasn’t, and that it was because I spilled 7 dollars worth of Long Island onto my pants and yours, which I was still bummed about.
We talked, and I swore to you twice that I envy you,
I envy you, my heart trickles with mercury as I write this,
I envy your love for yourself, my heart palpitates and my breath shallows,
I envy your desire for a tattoo around your rib, my eyes wet and blur,
I envy that you’ve found yourself, my smile tightens but my eyes crease,
I envy that you’ve gone up to talk to her, I almost but do not weep and the hipster glare of Haji Lane smudges and blurs and mixes until you can no longer be seen,
And I envy you because you’ve gotten better, and who am I then if you’re better
?
I type to you, “because, God, I wish I were that brave” and I mean it, I meant every word of it, and you don’t know this because I’m sitting on a steel bench with my mouth gasping for air, desperate to not drown under the weight of not knowing what to do.
In a few days, I will stand on stage with a fake gown and a horrible prerecorded accent, in a few months, I will stand on the same stage in another gown and a mortarboard and a degree and in a few years, this will all be forgotten, I am bloody sure of it.
But for now, it is real, it is really, really, real, and God, what am I to do with this horrible horrible person I am left as?
I’m not done with this post just yet, but I am tired enough to turn in and forget about why a hidden tattoo on your ribs drives me into a heartwrenched shock.
Leave a Reply