The Great Smith

Soundtrack:

I ask how she's holding up.
She sends back a picture of her with her hot friends.
She looks glib and carefree with the Cheshire cat smile hot girls have while they're hot, don't have to work out to be hot, and feasting on the crack rock pipe of attention from douche-y guys.

Life is still weekends on the boat, free drinks, guys listening to them blather on with what passes for a personality.....all the while the clock ticks and her soul whithers and dies as it does for most pretty girls. Necessity is the mother of invention...and pretty girls don't need good or endearing or attractive personages.

My ex-wife texts me around the time my girlfriend does and I sip my coffee as I walk into a meeting for one of my 4 jobs.
It's a bit different b/c it's service industry but the adult in me who's held a real fucking job in an actual organization feels the irritation of time from my limited fund of "not at work" minutes required by anyone.
It's a bit different b/c I have a beer. The first I've had in what feels like an eternity. The voice of the dark passenger doesn't call to me and I don't listen for it.

I sip my beer and go through the motions of the work meeting.
I leave and grab another beer at a hipster-infested venue down the street, cruising the streets on foot with beer instead of what looks like my coffee to go.
The rain comes down slightly and I debate how to pass the time while my slight buzz kicks and I'm just glad to be outdoors, with nowhere to be, no work, already hit the gym, just free fuckin' lassez-faire time passing as sand through the hourglass.

I don't flirt with the female staff b/c I don't have the time or energy for that walk of life, or for any walk of life outside of my jobs and training in the gym.

But I see far on the horizon, a girl in a glass house full of shiny objects glittering in the warmth of false promises and illusion.

Life doesn't imitate are, rather, art imitates life.
I think in narratives as I examine my life and those around me.
She's not quite Daisy and I'm not quite Gatsby. She is off in the white tower, and she is indecisive because she resides slightly beyond my grasp. The harder I grip the more she slips from my palm. Her voice has the promise of not money but a lyrical quality.
I didn't grow up dirt poor but I'm a hopeless romantic and she's a fragile shiny golden girl walking a circle of relative privilege.
She's my ingénue.

Another version of the same girl I keep dating fucking over and fucking over.
A version closer and closer each successive time to the girl I want exactly.
I believe in the pursuit of perfection if nothing else.

I hold deep inside the innermost belief that there is a serenity to be found....a dream so deep and dear I scarcely allow myself to consciously rove my fingers across it and strum through the memory of her hair balled up in my fist and the warmth of her face pressed against my neck, her breath hot on my chest with tears and mascara streaming across her lips as she sobs and convulses with fragility in my arms.

I hear her voice saying "You feel like home" in the dark of the night and simultaneously recall the soft penetration taking hold while her nails dig into my back sharply.