She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah

He loved her, this much he knew, but the depths to which he did, not even he could comprehend. Her smile lit his entire world. He knew its detail right down to the spots she had damaged from grinding her teeth in her sleep. He loved those spots the most. He was enamoured with every last one of her flaws. He never saw them as flaws. He only saw them as parts of a whole. He saw them as what made her, her.

Her insecurities were rampant. She found accepting such unconditional love a difficult thing to do. She thought him a fool for loving a wreck like her, but oh, how she loved him too. His childlike optimism fuelled her on a daily basis. No matter how dire the situation, he found the silver lining and never let her fall back into her old habit of running away and hiding.

A leaky roof meant a closer connection to nature. She scoffed. When that leak turned into a hole, he praised the lord for providing them with a skylight. She cried, but inside smiled at his effort. Things like not having enough money for a nice vacation simply meant they’d get to spend more time with friends and family. She didn’t particularly like her family, but figured his was okay enough. He was her rock. She was his life.

The day he asked her to marry him came as a shock to no one but her. They’d never discussed marriage, and although she loved him more than anyone she ever had or ever could, she had never once in her life considered marriage a viable option. She was flabbergasted and annoyed with him for the sudden monkey wrench. She said no. She moved out the next day.

He drank himself to sleep nearly every night for a month. One night he had run out of Scotch, so he decided to leave the apartment and go to the corner store. He was still drunk from the previous twenty-seven bottles and hadn’t seen the light had turned red. He stepped out onto the road and was struck by car. He was rushed to the hospital immediately.

Later that evening, she walked into the room and sat by his side. She called him a stupid fool. She told him that she hadn’t slept that entire month. All she could do was relive the moment of his proposal over and over in her head and scream YES as loud as she could instead of no. When he awoke and saw her there at his side, the first words out of his mouth were once again a proposal.

This time she said yes.

He Sits Alone and Drinks

he sits alone and drinks
he doesn’t know how he ended up here
while he pours another he’ll reminisce
i used to be happy, he”ll think
i used to have friends
he sits alone and drinks
he sits alone and thinks it’s everyone else but him
it can’t be him
another swig and the anger seeps in
another swig and he feels the tears
he can’t remember the last time
anyone had even asked him how he was
he can’t remember if anyone had asked if he was okay
he sits alone and drinks
he’ll trace it back to her
her memory will take the brunt of his temper
he sits alone and drinks because she went away
she went away because he sits alone and drinks

DAY FOURTEEN – “Instructions to a Simple Task”

Danny sat in the middle of  an uncomfortable couch located at the front of the office. It was leather and looked beautiful. She figured it must have cost an awful lot but it was also rock solid. She felt as though she were sat on a slab of marble. She flipped through an old copy of NOW Magazine before putting it down and retreating into her own head. She was nervous. She was anxious. She was petrified of what was about to happen. It was a simple job interview but she needed it badly. To say Danny had been struggling this past year would be understatement. She’d fallen backward into old patterns after losing her job to “cutbacks” and a “bad economy.”

“People just don’t read anymore,” her former editor told her as he rubbed her lower back. “I have to make some difficult decisions when it comes to our writing staff. It’s come down to you and TJ and I need to know that you’re willing to go the extra mile.” His hand remained on her lower back. “Are you willing to go that extra mile, Danny?” Danny felt her skin crawl. She couldn’t believe what was happening. Here she stood, her livelihood on the line and this man she’d once respected attempting to parlay that into some sort of sexual advantage. Danny walked out of her former editor’s office that day and never looked back. From the office she went straight to the bar and also never looked back.  She regretted not reporting her harasser to the police, or the very least, to the owners of the newspaper. There was still time, she thought. Karma will get that man. I will make sure of that.

Danny spent the majority of her time drinking and arguing with different strangers in different dark rooms. She joked with them all that she was a walking cliché; an out of work writer that drinks too much and writes too little. She’d woken up one morning in the apartment of one of those strangers, splitting headache and no memory of what had happened. She decided then that she had had enough.

The interview was with an upstart blogging website called, “RISE.” It dealt largely in politics but also dabbled in music, art, and film. Danny had been reading it for some time now and when she finally decided to contact the editors to ask about job openings, she got a reply almost immediately to “come in and chat.”

She hoped to hell that there was a woman in that room waiting for her. She then began to get upset that she felt she had to hope that. Once again her nerves were taking over. Danny held out her hand and saw that it was shaking. She needed a drink. She was letting anxiety get the best of her and felt a panic attack coming on. Not again, she thought. Not this time. This potential job means too much. She felt she was losing control and the marble slab began to feel more like a cast-iron frying pan at full heat. She opened her purse and dug through it. She felt for her flask. It was cold in her hand. She wanted desperately to take it out and drink it down. She let it go and continued to dig. She found what she was looking for. It was a note from her father that she’d carried with her since she was thirteen. It contained the simplest of instructions that always seemed to help her. All it said was, Remember to breathe, kiddo. I love you. Danny took a deep breath and exhaled.

“Danny?” She heard a voice call. Danny looked up and smiled.

“That’s me.”

“Come on back, Danny. Let’s find out if you’re ready to Rise.”

DAY SEVEN – “A Liquid in Motion”

He sat at his lonely kitchen table, glass and bottle placed in front of him. Thoughts of the handgun in his bedroom creeping into his mind. Try as he might, he could not seem to shake them off entirely. The bottle stood in front of him imploring him to remove the cap and pour, “just a little taste” into the waiting glass.

Why not? He thought. It’s already cost me everything. Why shouldn’t I just give in? He felt the urge crawling and rising. It felt like and was as welcome to him as a spider between the sheets. It crawled upward and whispered quietly on behalf of the bottle. As it reached his ear, it made itself at home. It continued to repeat what the bottle wanted it to. Quietly at first but then in sporadic, fierce bursts of light. He once again thought about the gun.

It would be so easy, he thought. It would be all over. I wouldn’t have to hurt so much every day. I wouldn’t ever hurt anyone else again. They’d all be so much better off. That’s it, the spider whispered, take a drink. Numb the pain, then end that pain forever. Do it. His eyes welled and tears began to stream down his cheeks. They dropped to the table as he leaned forward and grabbed the bottle in front of him.

He popped the cap. Yes, the spider called out, DO IT! He lifted the bottle to his nose and smelled. A brief sense of calm and euphoria engulfed him. The spider’s voice was gone. If this is what it takes to shut you up, maybe it’s worth it. He took a deep breath and lowered the bottle to his lips.

YES! YES! The spider shouted. A blast of pain and light hit his head as he pictured the handgun once more. Jumping up from his chair, he ran to the sink. What do you think you are doing? The spider scolded. You have nothing left to live for. End this now!

“I AM ENDING IT!” He yelled out loud as he turned the bottle over and began to pour it into the sink. The liquid in motion was a beautiful sight to see. He watched it circle the drain and then turned on the tap to make sure it was all rinsed away. “Let’s just get through today,” he said to the spider. “You can try again tomorrow.”