Went to “Jake’s Billiards” in my hometown the other night.
Not that I got all that far away from home,
It was just an hour drive.
I looked around at all the hootchie cootchie outfits
And the underage faces,
And reminded myself
That I’m not in college anymore.
Haven’t been for a while.
What the hell was I doing there?
Playing pool poorly
Then darts.
Throwing them harder than necessary,
Straight for the wall next to the target.
I was aiming for the bull’s eye though.
People got a kick out of how hard I was throwing those darts.
And how hard I was missing the target
And I felt like I was having a nervous breakdown.
But I laughed too.
I was drunk and a little hysterical.
I’m not too old to be irresponsible
Yet
But I feel like I am.
And every other girl in that room looked like she must have
possessed a fake ID
I was there with my best friend and some guys who were chasing
her beautiful, round Russian face like everyone else does. They were philosophy
students.
I wanted to tell them not to bother.
With chasing her,
Nor with studying philosophy.
I’m jaded.
I don’t feel angry about the way the world is turning like I
should be. I just keep chugging along, working bullshit jobs and not taking the
energy to hope that things get better.
But that was the first time I ever felt out of place at a grungy
dive. I hadn’t been to one in a while. I’d forgotten how long I’d been a
hermit, how many months had passed by of me being drink-less and mostly alone.
It’s weird how the slowest moving parts of the past look like a blurry nothing.
A blurry nothing that’s similar in appearance to the travel of light. I’m not
sure what I had been doing since the last time I’d been in a dirty bar.
Probably just working, watching T.V., sleeping and maybe reading a little when
I wasn’t too tired. Just one great long day of that for so long that it’s like
nothing ever happened on any given day, ever.
“I should be doing better than this by now” is what I kept
telling myself at Jake’s Billiards.
But every day I see all the bored looking white-collar
nine-to-fivers come into the corporate coffee shop (or drug dealership, as I
like to call it) where I work, and I don’t want that life either.
I feel like I’m in a permanent purgatory,
But I’d be lying if I denied half enjoying it.
And older, wiser people are always telling me things will turn
around,
That I’ll look back after having everything figured out,
And I’ll feel nostalgic for the fun side of instability.
I wonder if I looked like I was having fun throwing those darts
and missing the bull’s eye by a few feet.
All I know is I’m bored, and everyone I know is bored too.
I played darts long after losing interest in it, but it passed
the time like everything else does.
