It was almost always the middle of the night when you’d wind up at my door. No phone call. No warning. Just you, standing on my porch, shivering, asking to come in without saying a word. There was always some kind of drama, an urgency. You were always so misunderstood. Slighted by the world, and bruised. In need of a boost of one kind, or another. As for me, well, I thrived off those times when you needed me. You built yourself up by unburdening your thoughts to me, then picking apart everything that was me.

“Every time I get no further.
How long has it been?
Come on in now,
wipe your feet on my dreams.
You take up my time like some cheap magazine,
when I could have been learning something.
Oh well,
you know what I mean.
Oh, I’ve done this before,
and I will do it again.
Come on and kill me baby,
while you smile like a friend.”

“Like a Friend” by Pulp
from the album, This Is Hardcore (1998)
Song Of The Day – October 7, 2011

You were always just out of reach. Cool, edgy, and breathtaking to look at. I wanted to be near you. To be part of what emanated off your skin. And some days,

I think I wanted to be you.

I never recognized your weaknesses. Or maybe I chose not to. I tried to ignore how you used me sometimes. All the times.

At 19, I was just starting to break out of who I’d been. I wanted to recreate myself. Be someone new. And I was doing it. I was becoming more of myself in the process (under all the ways of what I wanted my “self” to be). Yet I couldn’t see so many things for what they were.

I chased after the ones who felt out of my league, still plagued from the years of being cast aside and labeled as an adolescent. So, I put up with it. I put up with all your unannounced appearances, your harsh words, your empty promises.

I let you smoke all my cigarettes, empty my bottles of wine, keep me up all night, and watch you pocket my stash on your way out the door.

I kept answering the door when it was you.

I still wanted to be you.