Tired and red-eyed at the end of the weekend, I make my way to the bathroom and put my hands on the sink. It�s cool and white marble travels up my arms and fills me with polar bears for a mere second. The cold water splashes on my hand and I throw some on my face and look in the mirror. One more Sunday in a series of thousands I will see.

$$

You are an overrated woman. With that horrid smell of alcohol on your breath, you should be force-fed gallons and gallons of whole milk until you vomit. I want to give you the worst hangover you have ever experienced. Spend a night with me, I love fucking with you drunk women. I love pretending with you. I love how you look at me with moist lips and a head full of ferris wheels. I love how you hurt yourself with your actions. I like the way your blood fills with poison. You are weak, you know it, I know it, get to sleep before you have the worst night of your life.

$$$

He cries himself to sleep every night, wondering what it is that he can do to get out of this mess. He didn�t mean to hit it so hard. Hit the bottom so hard like this. Destroying the television fantasy and novel he thought he wrote. His wife washed her hands of him months ago. He drifts now. Perhaps one of these days he will be able to pull that butterfly net out of the closet again/

$$$$

Her and I spent one night together. Just one night. I didn�t need anymore to see where she was coming from �You�re like the others right?� I asked her this staring her down. Sizing her up for meat for the dogs in my closet I would bring out later in the night. �You think you can do this?� I asked her. She couldn�t do it though. Her white outfit never said as much as it did this night.

$$$$$

I am not going to entertain any of the ideas she throws at me. She wasted me. Years ago I met her in a subway station. I am not taking her drugs she offers. The drugs she offers are lips and knowledge of Swedish films that ruins any amount of pride I may have in my open mind.

$$$$$$

I emerge from the lake and walk up the sand and dirt. I walk towards the cabin we rented. They are all in there, the three other couples. Playing cards, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer. It�s noon on a Sunday. The cabin is filled with crazies. The crazies laugh and joke. My date is sitting on the couch with some sort of exotic drink between her legs. I walk over and tell her that we need to go out to the lake. I found something in the lake. She says she will join me later in the afternoon. I make my way back out to the lake and float around on a raft. I fall asleep and wake up on the other side of the lake. There is a cabin that looks similar to the one I was staying at. There are people inside playing cards, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer. It�s one in the afternoon on a Sunday. There is a woman sitting on the couch with an exotic drink between her legs. I tell her she should join me in the lake. We go to the lake and I show her what I found. Solitude. I show her this, and tell her to go back to her mediocre life in the cabin.

$$$$$$$

Coming out of me, I guess it would sound silly, but I really, really do get a kick out of it all. The lifestyle. It makes me think. It makes me wonder what it�s like. It makes me smile from time to time I guess. They all live here, and I live way over here. Sort of funny how you can appear to be right next to someone, when after all, you are miles away.

$$$$$$$$

She comes home and cries herself to sleep at night. She will make herself all pretty tomorrow and meet that cute boy that comes into the store all the time. She will make herself pretty. Thirty minutes after the shitty Jim Carrey movie, he will lose every bit of respect for her as she takes him inside her, but will tell his friends all about it.

$$$$$$$$$

The way I look at it is: You can either live your life with a smile, knowing you made the correct decisions, or you can go the wrong route, and tell people what they want to hear. You can follow things like the stars, and what the VJ tells you on the television. I invite folks over for a drink of punch here and there, but they seem scared. They seem scared that someone might see them acting out of ordinary. There is one place for them, it is a little south of here.

$$$$$$$$$$

We talk and talk, but I think it goes in one ear and out the other. You take yourself way too seriously, I mean look at you. Designer jeans with the cuffs rolled up perfectly. Hair gel? Men should not be allowed to use hair gel. If so, they should automatically have ten years of their life cut off. Those shiny shoes will look great with splashes of Jack Daniels flavored vomit on them. The tattoo, it looks great on your wrist, what the fuck does it mean though? Who really does care when it gets down to it. You, that�s right. That�s the truth, and it�s the way it should be. As long as you care that much, you�ll get by kid. Just watch the road, and don�t wait for anymore advice from me.

$$$$$$$$$$$

I am not like you. You are not like me. Why settle then? I don�t know, boredom? This is my trip, you get to just sit back and watch. Fine, laugh at me, and point, in the long run though, you know what? You will be on the beach sipping cocktails with the cast of Baywatch, and I will be holding a fort down with all sorts of weapons and words.

$$$$$$$$$$$$

She wanted to be like her mother. She told herself that alcoholism, and addictive personality was hereditary. What she failed to realize was that she was just weak. She didn�t learn any lessons from watching mommy crying in the kitchen all night. Remember those nights lying in bed listening to the faint sounds of your mother crying in the kitchen? They would get louder and louder. Your little ten year old sister didn�t know what was wrong with mommy. Your father did the right thing, tried to get her help once. It didn�t work once, so he left. Smart man. You can�t count on the alcoholics. It�s a disease or something like that. If mommy gets it, you get it. You watched what it did to mommy in the kitchen. Now you sit in some dark bar waiting for that one guy to take you home and fill you up like the daddy you never had.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Seeing dead bodies numbs me beyond control.. Funerals, wakes. They ruin me inside, but I can�t express it. What do I do? I come home and throw the television on. I was a pall bearer in the spring, my grandmother died, and I had to carry a her body in a casket into a church. I never go into churches unless two people are in love, or someone dies that we all love. I cannot get a grasp on death right now. It has haunted me since that day. It wakes me up in the middle of the night. Horrible images of family members being killed in car wrecks, and murder. Me not existing anymore, things like that. That�s how I feel night by night around this time of night.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

She held me down with her arms and kissed me like nobody had ever kissed me before. The worst kiss of my life. The worst lay of my life, she. I can picture her face right now. Way too interested. Please, don�t say my name when I do this to you, I want to get home in time for Letterman, and I don�t need anymore guilt than I already have.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Seeing things in perspective nowadays, ah, this is how it is eh? They are all like this, boys, girls, men, women. Nobody needs to get involved anymore. Let�s all just numb ourselves to the shit going down. Feels better that way. Feels like Friday night in here tonight. Which one of y�all motherfucker�s came to get on down tonight??!! Well then get your ass up on stage here and show me!!!

(curtain)

before & after