questions and crutches

“You still love her? Don’t you?”

That’s a question most every guy has heard.

The lucky ones, or unlucky, depending on your theory or perspective, are the few that haven’t heard it.

The answer you give, and the answer you know, they’re always different.

Having your heart broken isn’t a badge of honor. It’s a tumor. Some of them fester and become cancerous. Others just sit there and annoy you. You can cut them out, but most of the times they grow right back. You can ignore them, and they may kill you. Or they may not.

As I sit here in my living room, drinking a cold IPA and listening to the rain, the ghosts dance around the house like they always do. I’m use to them now. I used to not have the ability to function when they were around, but, since they’re always there, it became necessary to learn how to.

At first, it was alcohol. Nothing else. Just drinking and drinking. You lose a lot of weight when all you do is drink. Even if it’s beer. Your body sort of starts to eat itself and you lose weight.

You also lose teeth. But that’s a long-term problem. It doesn’t happen quickly. Unless you fall down drunk one night or morning or afternoon and they get knocked out. No, they rot. Like your heart does. Like your soul does. Like your career does.

Yeah, you can get off of your ass and “make something positive out of it.” Like all your friends will say. Like the shrinks will say. Like the self-help books and web sites will say.

And they’re all right.

Just like you are.

It’s a choice, right? That’s what the good book of life says. You choose to be happy, you’re happy. You choose to be sad, you’re sad.

Well, what if you don’t choose?

That’s something to ponder.

For minds deeper than mine.

I’d rather just eat peanuts out of a can and drink IPAs, while listening to the rain.

My friends all moved away from here. They all got married, too.

Me? I fell in love again. Yeah, it was good. I got my heart dusted again too. It hurt like hell. But not as much.

I waited a bit. Got tentative again. Drifted. Drank. Drove.

Then I got off my ass. Got a job. Moved to the beach.

Allowed myself to look again.

Fell in love again.

Got really happy for a little while. Then got crapped on by God, or Karma, or whatever you call it.

Spent a night in a hospital in New Orleans. By far the worst night of my life. I can’t even imagine how bad it was for the girl who’s eyes I was looking into the whole time.

I shudder just thinking about it.

Now, as July 19 approaches, it hurts even more than it always did. But at least I have something else to be mad about on that day. Not something that doesn’t exist anymore. That doesn’t think about me anymore.

I wonder which I’ll think about first that morning.

It scares me to think that it would be the first, not the last.

It’s a guilty feeling, I know that. If I know me, I know which one will pop into my head first. And it’s the one no one would think should be first, but if it happened to them, it would be first as well.

God damn that’s depressing.

Like the song says, I hear her voice singing every song I hear. But, the voice ain’t calling me back. It’s taunting me. Making me stay where I am.

“So do something about it,” the angry mob sighs. Ha. An angry mob sighing.

Well, I do. I drink. And I write. And I listen to songs that I’ve heard hundreds of times before. They make me sad. Every, single time. But it’s a little less. Every, single time.

And that’s about all you can hope for.

One day, probably soon, I’ll have to deal with loss again. Death seems to be coming soon. Not me, I’ve probably got the DNA curse of long life. Even living out of a shopping cart, somehow my atoms won’t quit, I’m sure of that. Maybe the mind won’t make the journey. That’s morbid. Even for me.

I had an idea. Start a business with my dad. Only problem? It came 10 years too late.

Or is that just an excuse? Like the rest of it. Like the words. Like the thoughts. Like that crutch?