SPILLAGE
I threw an unlidded cup of coffee into the street. The liquid sloshed and waved out of the thing before it hit the ground. And it was good. It was good to finally have a physical reaction congruent to what I'd been mentally torturing myself with the past 4 weeks behind the veil of a smile. A boy. It's always a boy. Really, it's bigger than that. It's loneliness and I know it.
I could imagine how I must've looked in that fit. Like that scene in a movie where someone split second snaps at a dinner table and furiously swats a glass, sending it to shatter against a wall. But yeah, I can see it. My face knitting itself up tightly into a cry. My friend's arm around me, guiding me up Polk to her car from the Karaoke bar. The blubbering slurs spilling sloppily out of my mouth. The splattering of my anguish into the street, all cream and sugar and steaming from the asphalt now. The hollow sound of the cardboard cup making impact with the ground. It was all congruent, finally. And it was lovely.
I've not been able to cry in sessions with my therapist. Wait, that's a lie. Water's brimmed at the fleshy lining of my eyes, almost spilling, but not. Because I temper myself. I take a deep breath and fan my face with a hand and say. Can we talk about something else? I'm about to cry. Crying in front of another person, even a person being paid to listen to me blather on about the hyper-analyzed minutiae of my life, is an unacceptable imposition. I need permission to be able to do so. Being drunk is permission enough. If I could be drunk all the time, the prerogative to feel what I feel without remorse would always be mine. I would also be an alcoholic. The legitimacy of my reactions would always be questionable. I wouldn't mind keeping them guessing, though.
No matter what I do, I am easily undermined. But sometimes the Universe sees the six whiskey gingers and hears my rendition of Blind Melon's "No Rain," sees that letdown in my text messages, gets me that coffee--cream and sugar, and puts its arm around me, guiding me up Polk and back home. It cries with me. Fractures and spills. Makes itself congruent. And it is lovely.
