Feet treading on sticky floors. Numbers called, yet never mine. People passing through the corridor. Seeping into rooms, of which, it feels I am never asked to enter. Time stands still. An eternal pause. It seems, I am stuck in a moment that has lingered on far longer than is comfortable. Trapped in the waiting room that I have come to call my home. A life left to whither in the limbo between birth and death.
Rain pelts against the window panes, rendering me lifeless. The pointed pointlessness in emerging from the duvet which acts as my raft. Carrying me across the seas between consciousness and dreams. In any case, the world has long forgotten me, in its rapturous celebration of success and activity. I have simply faded into the walls which surround me. I am paint. I am the stage prop. The pot plant. I am no longer capable of acting out the scene. So, I died in the first act.
When Spring emerges, I dip a toe into the lake and question if I was wrong to try to drown there. Would my limp body have floated across the water’s edge. Gotten tangled in the weeds. Become food for the crows. I would have happily let them feast upon my rotting corpse. It has failed to feed much else. An empty womb that only bred sorrow. A broken heart that failed to mend. A mind like a scratched record, endlessly repeating past mistakes. Dreams, crumbled to dust and like my ashes, blown away.
The smell of bleach. White walls. Doctor’s calls. Eternal waiting. I need to pee, but they’re thirty minutes late. Best to wait. In the waiting room. With the sticky floors and the old magazines. The endless wait to be told nothing new. Nothing anyone can do. You ask too many questions, they say. You’ll always be suffering, they say. I slope off to my plants. To my walks, which turn into marathons, which turn into plane rides to anywhere but here. Yet, still I am there, wherever I go. Stuck in the internal waiting room. Waiting to do something. Anything.
Clingy. That’s what they’ll think. When the shine wares off. When they’ve gotten close enough to see behind the veil. Behind the smile. Close enough to get that the sparkle only lasts ten days out of thirty. Best to get the free trial. Not exactly worth the signup fee, which has a watertight contract. Cancellation comes with two years of additional payments. Mostly me crying. Falling apart. Late night stalking. Late night calling. Desperation on my tongue. Probably don’t even want them. But I might. Maybe I just want them to want me. But they only want me on my good days and they’re much rarer than they think.
I blame social media. I’ll eventually come to blame myself. But I’ll try to blame everyone else first. Maybe I’m just insane. Maybe I have a rotten brain. Maybe I’ll never be happy like those people I see online. The ones with the engagement rings and the big straight white smiles. And maybe I’ll never write that book. I can barely leave the house. Endlessly stuck down a YouTube wormhole, wondering how thirty days have passed. Maybe I’ll never find love, because who could ever love me. Maybe I’ll always be waiting. Maybe, I guess we’ll see…