Waiting In Vain

In sooth I know not why I am so sad.
Antonio, Merchant of Venice

I wish I knew what I wanted. I know what I don't want. But how can life always be defined by what we don't want?

We're near the end, so near, so very near, I can taste it. It tastes of ashes. And I smell ashes in the wind. Acrid, burning, unpleasant, sad. And all those goodbyes never said, rise up in me. All those goodbyes that bleed out into the cadaverous silence.

There are no echoes.

But I need the echoes. I need closure. I need the handshake, the gesture, the finality. I need to part on good terms.

Instead, I see bitterness. I see acrimony. I see hard little bullets glancing off my scars. To form new ones. Always new ones to cover the old ones. Scar upon scar upon scar.

I smell the whisky I will imbibe to forget. In so many anonymous bars. Until the air is no longer translucent.

Nothing is.

Nothing ever is.

Tell me something: How can you see through all this smoke?

I taste the bitter tears. And the bad aftertaste you leave in my heart. You weren't who I thought you were. I created you. Adorned you with qualities you didn't have, never dreamt of having, could never have.

My bad.

My fault.

My fucking lack of judgement.

Always mine!
Always mine!
Always mine.

Stupidity is inherent. Stupidity is what takes me from one moment to the next. Stupidity is what keeps me plodding through mistake after mistake. When all I want to do is give up. And lie in the soft dust, while everything around me crumbles, crumbles, crumbles.

And drift.

Because everybody drifts. And none of this is real. And life is just some cosmic joke and I wish, I wish, I wish I knew what the punchline was.

There's an art to goodbye,
Someday I'll learn it.