When you let it out

When you let everyone know how you feel you realize just how little others share with you their feelings.

When you tell your friend about your infatuations, your jealousies, and claim these as the source of your odd behavior you receive something different.

You get the dossier. His dossier on you. He's been counting and keeping track of all the things you've done. He listens from afar. He fills in the blanks. He confirms that he's just as jealous and or scared of losing something as you. But he won't tell you that. This is another part of this perceptual shell game where we try to match behavior to intention. I've revealed where I'm hiding my pea, why didn't he?

He wanted to win the game. I let him win. These kinds of odd shows of force over who's perceptive scheme wins out is all that we're fighting about. He has an ally, and for that he has more to lose. I don't. I've lost some trust and some closeness. I've perhaps lost the one and only source of a woman's compliments, the one and only person who would tell me whether or not I looked good, the only person who gave me any direction in how to dress and what to do. Currently all of that is on hold. She won't make eye contact with me.

I don't call that a silent victory. She's mad at me. My only victory in this sense is knowing that I can have an effect on another person. It's not like she didn't have a similar effect upon me. I waited and waited for a compliment that would confirm my fantasy world, my infatuation. When she told me that she loved me and described it as an inevitable conclusion I heard all that I needed to hear. I paired that with a hint at revenge sex from a night several months prior, and considered my chances good.

But my advances were received with strange behavior. She didn't tell me that I made her uncomfortable, and I didn't want to do that anyway. I just wanted to act out my feelings. I apparently touched her, something I didn't remember doing. My friend told me this. He was receiving his information from her. She never said a word that I recall, which would have indicated that she felt uncomfortable or that she didn't want me doing what I did.

It's all so odd. When you have a few friends at the center of your life, any change you make gets placed in relation with these people. Every move unseats a previous orbit. Every action entails some consequence.

And now I sit alone, not wanting to lash out in hate like I did before. Nevertheless, I sit alone once again. Once again I am all alone. The pitter patter of feet overhead, I sit alone and listen. I live vicariously through this movement of feet, the muffled voices, and I wish that my world could be full enough to push all that sound out.

I let everyone know where I stand, and I'm met with a confirmation that they've done similar work without me. They have their dossiers ready to read me a list of offenses against them and against their girlfriends. I stand against my own regret, looking back upon what I did, not even knowing all that I did. But it all surfaces the same whether I'm drunk or whether I'm just getting started. Some call liquor a social lubricant. It forces the truth out in messy ways. The truth passes through this drunken sieve and comes out messy and scatters about the place. You're still left to divine it, to sort through the mess, and make sense of it. A fist would be clearer message one may think. It's not.

So I sit alone, and this is the key concern. I live alone. I hardly work. I hardly live. I hardly experience. I hardly breathe. I hardly eat. I hardly try. I take what little scraps of hope, what tidbits of love, what crumbs of sense, and I make that into my life. It's not a noble profession. It's not a livable situation. It's not a reality that others will confirm or feel comfortable living within. I sit alone. I wish alone. I writhe about alone, wishing to be with another. I've yet to find someone that I'd put within the center of my life. I sit alone out of habit. I would have to learn how to sit with others. And I have none that will sit with me, that will be patient, that will push back when I lash out, that will tell me that my raves and rants aren't all that real or true or that tough. I need someone to dispel my magic, to bring me back to a world of drink cups, toasters, and television. Living on some precipice alone isn't an artful direction nor is it a wise choice for how to be in the world.

I walk along a path alone. I seek out the fantasy world that I've built for myself. I seek out a life alone because a life with others would puncture my little bubble of fantasy, magic, and mystery. Perhaps I need that. I do need it. Some day, I tell myself. Some day I will reach out my hand and touch another hand. I will feel the warmth. I will find a home.