Young Writers Society

I’m living in a state of waking slumber. I keep taking naps. Hour, hour and a half naps. In the morning after I’ve eaten breakfast, in the afternoon after I’ve lazed around a couple hours, in the evening for the same reason. I never used to have dreams when I napped but now I do. I can’t remember them but I’m almost positive that I do. Little fragments flash at me when I open my eyes. Fragments of conversations I never had, places I never went, people I never met.

I’ve been locked in my house for a month.

The day you left, the front door and the back door stopped opening. I tore the handles off trying. The windows wouldn’t budge. I tried throwing books, staplers, hammers, and chairs against them. I used every implement I possibly could to make an exit. Nothing broke. Nothing even cracked. Except my knuckles as I punched the walls. Except my will as I picked the phone up and heard only silence.

Every morning at exactly 5:30, I watch the old man across the street walk his dog, an enormous Siberian Husky with a penchant for shitting on the sidewalk. The man is short, 5’2” at most, and wears hideous-looking plaid shirts with beige slacks, possibly the same pair, everyday. His one redeeming factor is an impressively full head of gray hair which gleams in the sunlight. I watch him return at 6:00 and enter his cavernous, Vintage-era dwelling to do God knows what. Probably eat breakfast, read the paper, watch a little TV. He comes back out in the afternoon to do the odd outdoor job – trim the hedge, water the plants, and so on – pausing occasionally for no reason at all, staring at the lifelessness around him. Then it’s back inside for the rest of the day. He has a car but he rarely uses it. If he does, it’s only for short fifteen-minute trips assumedly to the grocery store. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to the man in my life, or noticed him for that matter. Nor has he noticed me.

Bored as fuck. The TV still works but I’m sick of watching fakes and phonies advertise themselves. It gets repetitive because I mean, isn’t that what life is for? I think about you a lot. Mostly sexually. I loved how you would ask me to bite you when we had sex. Sometimes I bit you so hard you bled. But you kept moaning, kept asking me to continue. Your breasts were small and perky and beautiful. They were my favorite place to come on. There was something about seeing you silently get up and wipe yourself off with a towel that aroused me to no end.

Why hasn’t anyone come to check up on me? It’s hard living on canned soup and Ramen noodles – cliché, I know, but it’s all I have. I threw up last night because I couldn’t take any more watered down chicken noodle. I’d like to think I’ve made a lot of friends over the years. The kind that would worry and ask about me if I’d been absent for a long period of time. But I wonder now how many of them were really my friends and not yours. There hasn’t been a single knock on my door. Not even the mailman who continues to stuffs letters in my mailbox even though it’s overflowing and barely closes. It seems like whenever you break up with somebody, your friends immediately take the side of the girl – the females because they can sympathize and the males because they have a chance to move in.

You left some of your clothes behind. I’m not ashamed to admit that in my interminable boredom I tried them on and even walked in them. I savored the smell, the feminine air each piece left behind. So long as I didn’t look in the mirror and remind myself of what I was doing, it was almost as if you were still there. You loved your clothes. Every weekend you would beg me to take you shopping in the city. I hated to indulge you but occasionally I would and you’d spend hundreds of dollars on some dress or useless accessory. Your closet was filled with things you wore once and forgot about it. Towards the end, I threatened to throw all of your shoes in the garbage and you called me a dictator and left for three days. You stayed at your sister’s place. I ended up driving there and begging you to forgive me. Sorry I threatened to throw out your shoes, it’s your money and you can spend it how you please, I won’t complain anymore.

I was always apologizing to you. Even when it was clearly your fault, I apologized. Every time we got in an argument you couldn’t win, you ran to your sister’s and waited for me to come crawling back. You knew I couldn’t stand to be alone, didn’t dare entertain the thought of sleeping in my bed without someone beside me. I was never one to flirt with other girls. While I certainly thought about it, I was too spineless to ever make a move. You came into my life purely by chance – my best friend at the time introduced us at a party, surely not anticipating that anything would happen. I was hesitant and awkward in conversation but you pursued me and eventually convinced me to ask you out.

Having a girlfriend makes you extremely confident, particularly towards people who don’t have one. I loved parading you around in public places and at social gatherings, making sure to kiss and fondle you often so people would turn to each other and say “Look at those two lovebirds. They must have a healthy relationship.” Yes, look at me. I finally have an attractive girlfriend. She gives great head and lets me lick every inch of her body.

But eventually the attention started becoming tiresome to you. You stopped responding. When I tried to kiss you in restaurants, you turned away and told me politely but firmly: “Not here.” When I fingered you, you were dry. It was as if you’d lost all feeling for me.

There are bags under my eyes from lack of sleep. I’ve lost thirty pounds. What I need is someone to take care of me, someone to tell me it’s going to be okay even if I don’t believe it. Even if I never do. Three years doesn’t just disappear from your life. Marriage. Baby. Those two words are enough to make me sick. To think we ever talked about those things. To think I ever thought we could have a future together. You were probably laughing at me the whole time, on the inside. Laughing at my dreams, my ambitions, the plans I made for us.

You said it was over and you weren’t coming back. You said it would be best if I didn’t call or write. You were tired of commitment. You wanted to start over, go back to the way things were before you met me. I said fine, leave, take your fucking clothes with you. You fucking bitch you lying piece of shit you think I need you but I don’t. I don’t. I was so angry I didn’t notice you were crying. You kept saying you were sorry and that you loved me but I wouldn’t hear you. I wouldn’t look at you when you opened the door.

I wish I could get out of this house, find you wherever you are, and tell you that I’m sorry too. Then I’d leave and never call or write you again. I promise.