The assumption is that someone else, somewhere else, is having a better time than you are. The assumption is that someone else can fix you. The assumption is that you need to be fixed.
The loneliness is modern but mercurial. It rears it’s ugly head every time the phone doesn’t vibrate and the screen doesn’t flicker with that familiar ‘thumbs up’, telling you that in this very moment, you are liked, you are not alone.
You look to your phone for validation. Smartphones intelligent enough to know when your desperation’s reaching a fever pitch. Old messages are reread, numbers are deleted, contacts are renamed.
A kind of melancholy, the one associated with grey afternoons and Bon Iver records, follows you around like a stubborn child. And like an unmedicated disorder, its symptoms show up in the most inopportune of times. Maybe at 4:00pm on a Wednesday. Maybe on a Sunday morning when you’re alone in bed again. You lull it till it goes away only to have it return volatile and dangerous.
And what of feelings, anyways? They’re nothing but parasites that linger like uninvited guests, simmering in your blood till they explode in your speech. They disguise themselves as anger, frustration, and lust, not unlike alcohol disguised as an antidote. But the poison is you and the parasites will ruin you till they make you whole. This I know for sure.
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