existential crisis

i say too much. my lips bleed bitter half-lies and all i can do is hope everyone thinks i'm on drugs. let's assume that would be better than the truth. drugs are easier to quit than masochism, or so i've heard. 

my grandfather is on the decline. he's lived a grand life and i'm coldhearted these days. he's my last grandparent left and after this that's it, that's the end of a generation born into a world without television, a generation who do not take their children's failures personally. i'm going to visit after christmas for a day and a half because both he and i are satisfied with a handful of words, a passing glance. we're a dying breed. my mother will fill the silences she assumes are awkward and so destroy this quiet communication we have. the one person who acknowledges without words my right to exist. 


but when has this ever been about me? when has my life ever been about me? no, let's hope my roguish self-destruction is not evident enough to distract from the real crime here, that an immortal solitary old man's pains are getting the best of him. 


because that's it, don't you see? i have been created to fill in everyone's gaps. wait for my hipbones, ma famille. wait for my collarbones and the circumference of my thighs. i can't help being literary; you created me this way too. read my metaphors. this is how it is to be used.