residue

tossed aside.

a sopping wet towel on my bar, wrung out seventeen thousand times just to mop up some other wall street hag's disgusting kiwi flavored frozen margarita.

a bill on my nightstand, behind my lamp collecting dust because i know if i pay it i can't afford to pay my landlord rent.

strips from the photobooth lodged in the the back of my journal, eulogies to my many failed relationships.

the paintbrush on my floor, because even though you would think it couldn't take more than six months to paint a bathroom roughly the size of a coffin, it has, because it seems subliminally i don't really mind painter's tape as a decorative procedure.

the yoga mat on the floor of the kitchen. maybe by looking at it, natalie and i can claim yes, it has been used, so recently that we don't even move it because, why put something away if you use it that much?

i have become so accustomed to my style of hoarding that it just seems normal to find a nice, neat place for something that i may use in the near future; as if putting it away would somehow usurp it's existence. that's not true, of course, as those fuckers from american express have so relentlessly reminded me over the past year. but it seems that by moving something to the side makes it less real, less able to interfere with your everyday life.

and of course, there are always those times that we put that sweater that grandma knitted for christmas away for so long, that upon finding it, understand that we have no use for it anymore. until that damn "awful christmas sweater" party comes along and you have to go out and buy one from a vintage store, only to repeat the cycle all over again. i mean, it was a lousy seven dollars, but shit, that can buy a shot of jack daniels and a pbr at happy hour down the road from me. wasted. on the sweater, i mean.

on the opposite of that though, are the first edition coins a great-grandfather left you in his will, which, upon recovery, turn out to be worth four hundred dollars and fifty-eight cents. i never knew you, gramps, but you have definitely contributed to my full-sleeve tattoo. i know you'd be so proud.

when i was dating the kid, i was head over heels impossibly corrupted in love with him. granted, i had just come from a relationship with mooseface that was so holy the pope could have used it to masturbate into. i wanted something pure, and quiet, and simple. something my heart would recognize. something that was so grounded it was covered in dirt.

and so it was. i breathed him for several months. six, to be exact. i was to leave the day after valentines' to teach in san francisco. everything was as planned. i took the train to the airport, got on the plain, flew seven hours to cali, and went to my hotel room. all with no word. after calling his roommate and finding out his phone wasn't broken and that he wasn't dead in the gutter, i was bludgeoned with the realization that, he just wasn't really that into me.

i had been used. and tossed aside, limp as a noodle and less aware than anna nicole smith, well, ever.

me, used? no. there had to be a reason. there had to be something i did... something he did? wait, did i even do anything to deserve this? think, now... think. i bought him dinner, drove to his house almost an hour away from me, gave him a killer photojournal for valentines... no. there was nothing i did wrong.

so what did i do wrong?

we patched things up, just to come unsewed several more times, and eventually, fell apart into shreds. we were the favorite jeans that fit so well to begin, but the seams on the legs just start to unravel, and fray. we were the great pair of boots whose heels are bore down to the concrete underfoot. the white shirt you fatally wore to the red wine tasting.

but when it comes down to it... i was a way to make someone feel really good about themself. which, really, is quite flattering, but at the end, it eats away at you.

and it's not just lovers. we do it to friends, we do it to family, and we do it to people we work with... unfortunately, at this point of the world, after all of the stories over the years of divide and conquer... some of the best kingdoms have come out of this betrayal. and although i would love to be able to say, "well, keep your eyes open and it won't happen to you..."

i can't.

i thought that after years of dealing with this from the kid and assorted other lovers and friends, i would be able to tell if someone wasn't who they were telling me. i was all hyped up on me for being so good at "reading" people. right. it's only been a year since last i experienced it and i'm still walled up in my chest, protecting the one thing that i've always wanted to be someone else's.

but that's a different story, a different novel, i will have to cover sometime else. i don't feel like moving those mountains tonight. ugh.

i guess we really don't have a choice. we have a chance. the choice comes after the pitcher makes their move, and i'll be damned anymore if i decide to wait on the side of the bar anymore to mop up someone else's mess.

k.