Sartre was wrong.

I sit and sip a beer. I feel the old mask slip over my face.
I've trained to the point that it's time to rest.

But....it is early. The sun has yet to set.
The call comes from downtown.
I have miles to go before I sleep.

I feel the old fatalism so indicative of my nature and prepare to hop on board the bus.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
I may be picking up a second job downtown soon.
I already know where this summer is heading.

Some(many) questionable nights with the type of girls that will go bananas once they've found out I'm on the market again. Right now, it's just a few friends that know.

I feel the old lack of concern for my well-being lurking beneath. It's there. It was never gone. It just went into remission when my life changed with marriage.
In the quiet of the solace, the questions grow louder. The self doubt.
So the drinking becomes more frequent.

I'm holding onto normalcy for the time being. I don't have the desire to drink every day anymore. That truly has died and faded away. The weekend she left, I got semi-hammered for a few days, never skipped the gym, and hit back my old routine on Monday.

You try to fill the hole. You fill it with work. With booze. With sex. With drugs. With video games. You try giving it just enough that it will leave you alone.
Then you try jamming it full until it collapses or until you quit and die.

That doesn't work either. And you realize this is your own personal hell.
Hell isn't other people.
Hell is yourself.

"This is not an exit," from B. Easton Ellis, or "No Exit" if you prefer the Sartre.
    - Yrs. in Christ