A loss, again

Wednesday 

Again. 

Mosquito forces me up. Little fucker, are my first words of the day, too loud perhaps for the neighbours. Neighbours imagined, rarely seen, never spoken to. 

Into the bathroom, after routine skimming of news on phone, to see but not really see about the latest bombings and murders and desperate disappointments all around. Today I will not curse her. Today I am strong. I am going to be resolute. 

Out into the street. Strong sun. Unexpected blue sky. Order a coffee and ask the waitress if it's okay if I work. Certo!

Smoke, drink coffee, try to work. Distracted by the guy in his twenties, blond dreadlocks, baggy trousers, baggy shirt, sitting with his parents, smartly dressed. They laugh a lot together. They seem strong together. 

I run out of will. The will to continue as things are. Here, at this table, beside this busy road, with these cigarette chains and these coffee chains. Put my laptop into my bag. A huge honking horn from a trundling bin lorry. Fucking cunt, I say a little too loud for the neighbouring table, no longer the family but a couple of girls deeply involved in a kiss. 

Pay the bill, after some mangling and fumbling of the language. Home again. The darkness still there. Gloom. The nothing still there. Can't take it for long. Can't take it. 

To the gym. To the swimming pool. Up and down, up and down, the older woman absolutely smashing it, lapping me, a furious crawl. But I'm fine at a slower pace. Better to drag this out. Drag this all out. Because there is nothing waiting for me after this. And I'm terrified of nothing. It's eating me alive. I feel it almost constantly. Almost. 

Walking back now. The bells of different churches, chiming. Call my father. 10, 20 minutes, describing his ailments, before he remembers to ask about me. I resent it. But then chastise myself. Selfish need, to call someone so they can ask about you. Be interested in him, be interested in others. Do not make love a transaction. But I do need to talk to someone. Someone. All this inner churning, falling apart, needs an outlet. There is no one. There is no outlet. There is nothing. 

And home now. But it's not my home, not really. Just another temporary occupation. And the roots I had put down in this city, they lie elsewhere. This place becomes even more not-home because of this; because it is not other nearby spaces, where Alessia and I played at love. 

Fuck you, Alessia. And my resolve is gone. My resolve was not resolve. Like my quitting smoking was not quitting smoking. Like my not being self-centred was not not-being-self-centred. Perhaps like my falling apart is not really my falling apart. 

And that's the only hope, really. That eventually this passes too, like everything. That it fades into nothing, before I am consumed by it. That what is now pain and inscrutable, incomprehensible, becomes a memory, a plot point. The way, I suppose, the past two years of what was supposedly our relationship must have become for her, for who knows how long. 

And the night, again. And the rain comes. And I smoke, crouched on the doorstep, ignored by the dogwalkers who pass by, aloof. Tears well up, again, but fail to turn into streams, again. And it's still early in the night, and there is so much time to kill, and I hate to kill it, but what else am I to do. 

What else. 

I want to go back and change everything. Do better, be better. Or else let me go forward, to a better chapter. Let there be one. But here, right here on this doorstep ... no I can't abide this. I can't carry myself through this, from one night to the next. Can no longer drink myself into oblivion, nor find any carnal escape. Anchored, tethered, chained right here, to this moment after moment after moment. And all the pain, chained with me, in me. 

What a waste.