Michael,

I feel like a walking vagina. No, worse. I feel like a walking hole. A walking hole with two breasts. I know that's what you see when I walk into your apartment. I know you just humor me, ask me simple questions about my job and respond approvingly - "mm-hmm" - to cover your bases. I know you treat our conversations like anyone pays for groceries: you don't want to do it, but you feel it's necessary. All you want is the groceries, damnit, but getting them without paying? Well, in some upright, moralistic sense, that's just not right.

I'm writing this on the bus, because I know that in a few hours, as I'm taking this same stupid bus back home, I'll be in no state for clarity. There's a drunk man in front of me, stinking like cheap wine, tucked away in himself to escape what, from the looks of his clothing, must not be a cheerful life. When I will sit on this bus, coming back from you, I'd be lucky to have the kind of clarity he does. His head may be spinning, but he did it to himself and at least he's close to the one who's to blame. Me, I'm not close to you. Physically, for a little while, I suppose I am. But I don't know you. I just know what you want.

This isn't the first time I've done this. There have been many more, you know. Many more who call me up, using any approach they think works. They're cool, they're demanding, they're sexy, they're uninterested. And each and every time, I fold. I get a little sense of being wanted, and as hard as I try, I can't turn it away. Then, I think about what I'm doing on this bus ride, and how I should just go back home, and how I shouldn't reward your insensitivity with love.

And then I walk into your place, and I look around, and I think that I'm just another hole. I'm your beer bottle, I'm your drain, I'm your vacuum cleaner. And I guess the only thing that makes me better than those holes is that mine is the only one you'll stick your dick into. And that isn't the kind of wanting I need, even if it's what we both expect.

The problem, Michael, is that for a few moments, you're so fucking convincing. They were all so fucking convincing. And then you're done. They're done. And I'm back on the bus.

Cynthia.

dirty laundry