The World Looks Red

[WARNING: Minor themes of Substance Abuse, Mental Health, and Thoughts of Violence]

The world looks red. The ground sucks. I spit on the asphalt and rub it in with the heel of my dirtied boot. A jogger sprints by me with sweat running down his filthy brow as the stench of warm sweat assaults my olfactory senses. I turn towards him, but he is already far past me.

I can't hold back this anger anymore. So long I have left it to fester inside me while I nod and smile in your face. Meanwhile, you don't know a thing about me. Nor do you care, no one ever does.

See that's the problem today. Selflessness has taken a backseat the image of machismo and self-indulgence. it is frowned upon to be anything but self-made, so why would anyone help? That leaves people like me to fend for themselves. What happens when I can fend no longer?

The bark never worries anybody. They laugh and they joke and they jeer and jester about on my name. But the bite? Thats when they all take notice. She always did call me a lapdog, so I reckon I can do both.

I'm not the kind of person to take a life. No, I'm the kind of person who had his life taken from him. I'm the one you walk by everyday and snicker when I pass. I'm the one you cut in line and made sure I didn't have anything to say about it. I'm the one that you pushed down the stairs, the one who sat crying for thirty-five minutes before anyone even came to check on me while I sputtered out groans through my fractured ribs. I'm the one who didn't tell out of fear, who you came back to beat down anyway because the cameras saw you. I'm the one they didn't care enough to expel you over.

I'm the one who's heart you broke for no good reason. I'm the one who gave my life to you, the one who hat in hand begged you for your love and admiration like I had given to you. I'm the one you laughed about with him while I blew up your phone for two hours straight. I'm the one who knew what you were doing behind my back, but I didn't even care. I only kept calling to hear your voice. I'm the one you came home to and we both acted like nothing happened until you fell asleep and I went through your phone and broke everything in the house.

In my racing thoughts, I nearly trip over the curb. I'm not too sure of where I am walking at this point, only where I will end up. Besides, the feeling of being lost is all too familiar to me.

Now that you are gone, now that there is no illusion of hope, now that the carrot on the stick has fallen back onto the soil and been picked apart by every animal in the city, I see there is nothing. No love, no shame, no regrets.

And when you ripped the humanity from me, did you stop to consider that you only leave behind the animal. When you rip the soul from the heart, only blood remains. Now that is who I am. Blood courses through my body with no emotion or sympathy inside, only the cells.

Now I want to see what courses through your fucking veins. Maybe it will help me see what made your blood run so cold. Maybe it will give me a new appreciation for the pain that courses through your body. Or maybe I just want to see that we are exactly the same. Maybe I just want you to see it. Hell, maybe I want the whole world to see it.

I feel for my pocket. It's still there. No stopping me now. The hot sun beats upon me, something my father would commend it for. Maybe if he had instilled some values in me, I wouldn't be where I am now. The funny thing is, he was the only one who I ever felt like cared about me. That's the only love a guy like me has ever known, so when I show you how much I love you don't beg me for mercy.

Every so often, I feel like just moving on. I feel like building myself anew. Gone with the pain of the past and the loser I used to be. But then I remember, no matter how much I pretend, I can never change who I am, who I have always been. The punching bag.

Nobody expects the bag to punch back. Why would they? To you, I am here for one purpose. To lift yourself up. To look me in the eyes and tell yourself, "It could always be worse, I could be that guy." Well, you could never be me. People don't make it through what I have been through. People like me don't get handed a thing in life, they have it taken from them.

After an aimless journey, it appears my brain has taken up autopilot. I guess on all these drugs, sometimes your body just takes you where you need to go. It allows the brain the time to think, to rationalize, to act. I find myself outside of her house. Surely, they are both inside. If they aren't? Well, if they aren't I will wait here all god damned night.

My whole life, I tried to learn the virtues of sympathy. The human connection. I have tried nothing but to make people smile, to get to know them, to help them with their issues. When you spend so much time trying to be sympathetic, eventually you learn that there is nothing to sympathize with. Kindness is precipitated by need. A guy like me with nothing to offer, you see how quickly people turn on you. Sometimes, you don't even get the chance to find out.

So when I look upon your body, when your blood paints the asphalt crimson and I watch the life drain from your eyes behind a glaze of tears and fear, I will think to myself, "It could always be worse, I could be that guy."