The Aesthetic (Work in Progress)

Listen!  I have to tell you: I didn’t try.  I pretended, I lied, I almost believed – but I didn’t try.  You would probably say that I enthusiastically didn’t try, yet that wasn’t quite it.

I’m not happy, but I’m not miserable; it seems that now I live because life keeps letting me.  Recently some have started to call me a void, others label me as shy, most simply call me boring and you (wonderful you), you let me believe that I could do anything.  But I can’t.

Maybe I could have, for you.

Occasionally I believed that you existed to contradict me.  We were on two opposite ends of a spectrum – you passionately wanted, while I passionately didn’t.  I only difference is that while you made it your business to (in your words) “convert me into a wanter,” I didn’t care.  Maybe I should have though if it could have meant the difference between losing and keeping you.

This is our story.
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Dawn awakes me.  I squint at the clock while its impatient scream blisters my eardrum, and let a long sigh escape.  My muscles won’t let me move, and I have to force them out of their stupor.  I hate that.  I let my lead body weigh down into my carpet, which, as I am reminded of daily, desperately needs vacuuming.  And I swear I just vacuumed it Friday…or was that three weeks ago?  Man oh man, the days blend by…

…and I continue to force my body through my stupor until I’m able to get my first cup of coffee.  At two o'clock pm.

I am often reminded (and of course, you know this) by the time it takes me to consume my first cup of coffee that I need a new job.  Yet I unfortunately lack the time to search for one.  I spend most of my free time as creative writing, and although I have yet to land my first job as such, my newest short story is going to be a hit (I can just feel it (if only anyone would read it)).  During my day job I am yet another nondescript suit-and-tie wearing accountant with an asshole boss.  But please, save your sympathy for the guy in the next cubicle who lacks both hobby and girlfriend.  I really feel bad for him.

Two o’clock comes and goes, three o’clock arrives with a second cup of coffee, four-thirty, five-forty five and suddenly I’m in a rush, for today is the long-awaited day of our first date. 

I met you in a coffee shop.  You don’t remember?  Of course you do.  Our beginning is the typical “oops I grabbed your cup of coffee by mistake blah blah blah,” but we both know it wasn’t a mistake because your phone number magically appeared on my cup.  And so I called you, because you were cute and smiled at me.  It didn’t take much to make a good impression on this guy in those days.