Bitterness

I sat smoking a Marlboro Red 100. My chair was in front of the window. The window was open and the city air rushed upon my face. Cary Brothers was playing on my stereo. My apartment was torn apart. I meant to clean it up...but I didn't have the energy. She would have. She was a neat freak. But she was gone now. I was alone, robbed and beaten. I put a piece of dark chocolate in my mouth and washed it down with a swig of coffee. The city was disgusting...especially at night. Well...no. The lights against the sky were beautiful. Everything else, the people, the sidewalks. The pretentious artists in their studio apartments thinking they'll be the next Da Vinci. The future Hemingways. I hate this place. I felt my blood run cold. Nothing felt quite real...but I wasn't even high. I looked out of my window; there was a drug deal going on across the street, a couple were fighting in a window, a woman alone with a needle in her arm and a couple having obnoxiously loud sex. I saw the drug dealer in the alleyway; a junkie was sucking him off…I assumed as payment for drugs. That’s when it hit me: no one really cared about anything but themselves. Whether it’s a junkie blowing a dealer for heroin, or a husband beating up his wife, or a couple who insists on having earsplitting sex at 3:00 AM. All that matters is their own joy and their own rules. It made me sick, this human condition of greedy hedonism. I stood up and went to my medicine cabinet. I took four milligrams of lorazepam, which my doctor prescribed for my panic attacks. I turned my bath on and turned the heat all the way up. I ripped off my clothes and stood naked. I was unsure what I was doing, but I also didn't care. I fell to my knees. I don't know why I liked to make myself bleed. It wasn't the endorphins, it wasn't the pain. I just...liked to do it. I punched the porcelain until both of my hands bled. I attempted to stand up, and fell forward into the tub. My mouth bled and I lied back in the bathtub. I felt the scorching hot water steaming on my skin. I still had no idea what I was doing. I started picking at my lips and mulled over the last week in my head. Everything I lost. I didn't know what was going to happen next.