On being a regular:

Dive bars are really just the best.

Strictly speaking, it’s the sexual tension or lack thereof. Dim lights pull gazes through shadows and smiles warp in a mirror you didn’t realize was there. Dust and teeth and kind eyes, memories that may or may not be your own, siblings from different parents, all up on the wall somewhere.

Even though Iʼve known you for a while now, I still fall into your eyes as if theyʼre a dream Iʼve never had. We sit with our drinks between us amongst piles of dead skin, feeding a machine that eats time and sings for us, giving brief moments of eternity.

In an alternate reality where none of my friends have drinking problems, I would have no use for all these feelings of helplessness, and maybe then my capacity for empathy would wither away and die like the soul of a gentrified neighborhood.

Maybe then I wouldnʼt feel the urge to sip on some sweet death of my own at the end of each day. Maybe then my friends would come clean and come over more often, and maybe then Iʼd finally feel like I belong somewhere.