Loneliness

Tell me your name. The icicles that form around your face remind me of building snow forts in the winters of my youth. The freckle next to your left eye is identical to one a girl had in high school. Don’t I know you from somewhere? Have we met? These are all pointless. Lines have never worked and they never will. The sad part is that the men in this place have used them all tonight, and will continue to use them for many nights to come. They will still be single in the end. They will not understand why. Yet, I am one of these men. I am here, searching, hoping, using, and lusting. I don’t believe I am the bottom of the barrel. I may not be the smartest person, or the best looking, but I am something of a prodigy. This is to say that I can do for you all the things that you need done, not just the things you need, but also the things you want. The desires I can satisfy are but limitless. The pain I bring, the baggage, are of normal amounts, but I’m almost sure you would expect that by now. I stand by this bar, hoping that you might come by and say hi, afraid to do so myself. You are the one for me, karma tells me so, fate has dealt its cards, my heart jumps and the butterflies attack. All of this I want to say to you, to let you know exactly how special you are, my lover, my partner. Everything will be peaches and cream if only you would come over and say hi to me. Everything will be happily ever after if only you would come over and say hi to me. Everything will be every fairy tale you have ever read, if only you would come over and say hi to me.

Then the darkness comes. The creeping over me intensifies all of my senses to the point of sensory euphoria. I smell you. You may be across the room but I can smell the pheromones you are willing my way. The conversation you are having with your friends, as mundane as it may seem to me, clearly elates you unequivocally. And I see your expression. Each sweet movement of every wrinkle of every line in your face stands out to me. Oh, the beauty, the grace, you move so smoothly, your silky hair swaying back and forth as you sway to the music. Music can move the soul they say, and, it seems, you can move mine. I defer my escape into the night where I would normally find myself at home watching those infomercials that sell all of those useless things that I can’t seem to get enough of. Instead, I continue to stand by the bar and watch you, smell you, and hear you. I want to taste you and touch you as to fulfill all of the senses, but that must wait. In the meantime I drink, watch, wait, and drink some more. I anticipate that you will enjoy all of these things about me as well. If you don’t, I cannot know what I will do with myself, to myself. I feel self-pity for a moment but quickly realize that this potential turn of events is of no consequence as destiny dictates that you will love me, become entangled in the preordained bind that guides us. And so I take my chances, for this is all I can do. The reward is more precious than I would have guessed. The sweet melody of your voice as you reject me makes me bones shiver. It’s all right though, this is how it should happen and you just don’t know it yet. Rejection is the first step in our relationship and soon you will realize the potential of fate and succumb to it.

We agree to meet after closing time because you want to spend the rest of the night with your friends before we start our intense relationship. This isn’t the way I had planned our first encounter, yet given tonight’s circumstances, it will have to do. I wait outside the club for an hour, planning the rest of the night, planning the rest of our relationship. The waiting feels like a year and kills me deep inside. Then the people are walking out, and I am happy; you are not there, and I am not happy. This isn’t how our future is supposed to be, a missed connection and a lack of communication. I run through the alley, along the side of the club, around the back, searching, waiting, and there you are heading to a car. I must have just missed you. I hear you mutter something under your breath as I approach and know that it is words of lust, just as the thoughts in my head are. I swear to you that you have agreed to have coffee, and I know that is when you will see the connection that our souls hold. You wave for your friends as we walk to the late night coffee shop down the street. Yet why wave so frantically? You mustn’t yell my dear, the streets are loud enough at closing time, and we don’t want to disturb the neighbors.

And I wake. I don’t know where I am. Oh, I’m in my bed. But where are you? And of course I recall. You turned out to be like all the rest. All of these horrible bitches who couldn’t surrender their souls to the fateful love that exists between us. The ones who rejected me; nay, no one rejects me, you rejected the predestined connection. And so I deal with you as I have dealt with those before you. I lay in bed and weep, not for the lost soul; not for the lost life; only for the loneliness and the clothes you ruined with the devil’s liquid which kept you alive. I met you on that fortunate night and will not forget you anytime soon. At least not until my next soul mate.