I was inside my bubble, sleeping and drinking, talking and talking and talking endlessly. Maybe it was my way of escaping reality, because my head was scattered, unable to follow a single story. And every story disappointed me. I didn’t want to flip the pages anymore. And when I did want to, the other person hesitated, looking at the tired old cover of my book. “Who wants to read this?”
So true. Who? Well, there is a saying, “No one wants to be a member of a club that they could belong” (Think it was Woody Allen).

And I close the books so abruptly.
“Okay, no more polyamory.”
And monogamy?
Not quite sure.

Lies, lies, lies ---- I spit out lies to survive. Pretending to be okay. Pretending to be numb. Pretending I don’t feel hurt every time I turn on the TV. I can’t believe I’m part of this reality, where everyone is staring into a screen, uninterested in the world itself, searching for something, anything, to stimulate them.

A WALKING FUCKING DICK.
That’s what we are.

But I don’t want pleasure; I want love. That’s impossible, right?

Perhaps not. If I were an inch shorter, a little less messy, if I didn’t fill my stomach with cheap alcohol and fried chicken. If I spent time coloring the vase like Picasso. If I sliced the lemon cakes and didn’t have performative phone sex with strangers.(Just to see what it's like to be a hooker) If my nipples were smaller and I made amazing egg salad sandwiches. If I cut the branches neatly for my neighbors, if I read a paper books on the train (but it has to be a novel and never nonfiction), or simply brushed my hair, and didn’t jot down whatever is on my mind in a diary. In other words, if I were anything but me. 

And if I wiped the dirt off the cover, carefully concealed the stains, and rolled out a fine thin piece of paper and wrapped the book neatly like it's brand-new. 

But perhaps it doesn't always have to be that way. 

A tired old book meets a tired old book, and that tired old book asks on a date.

And that's how a story starts. Not everything has to be brand new, because we can share a silent sigh and start breathing together. Shrugging at how pathetic we are, but embracing it none the less because its true.