21

21. 21 is such a hyped number. 21 years. Legal drinking. 21st century. In which we are living. Etc. etc. Yet it is not until you get there that you realize nothing has really changed. Of course, me being me, I anticipated that, but still, it can be a little disheartening, just a little, especially when one has been hanging on by fingernails waiting for something to become different as long as I have.

Nothing, that is, except for the sensation of being closer. I don't know when, where, or what it's going to be, but I have been anticipating a point in the not-so-distant future, upon reaching which I will simply crack, snap, and lose what remaining capacity I have for love and happiness, the last remnants of the forces holding my body and mind together. So easy to get to feeling like dried-up branches and withered shadows. I don't know what will happen after that. I don't know if anyone will care.

I'm usually okay at the very least. But sometimes I find myself intoxicated, shivering despite the summer heat, having fallen asleep without meaning to, and needing to find my way home, and after those times I'm never sure whether that state is a creation of intoxication or simply a revelation of it.

Certain people are no longer where I last left them. Not anything I could've done anything about. Can't do anything about anything. What is there to do? but to tap one foot on top of the other, and pronounce, "jolly good." Smile and pretend I don't remember anything at all. Remember, "you mean everything to me"? Just in my imagination.

I've been told I need to move. Can't. Nothing to move on to.

Sometimes I get this feeling that I had one chance for loving someone in a completely unhesitant, unquestioning way, and I blew it; henceforth no affection shall not be accompanied by skepticism and self-doubt.

I need to leave, I think. I need to get to a state of mind where this will all seem like such a terrible dream. Not be reminded at every turn. Not what I need now.

Reading something. I probably should not. Possibilities that might have been wasted for me a long time ago. Natural and real, but not for you and I. But now's not the time for clumsy Smiths references; now's time for Joy Division. Closer. Procession moves on, the shouting is over.

Maybe more sober and/or optimistic in the day?