Losing

Cigarette smoke swirls sweeping grey patterns of gravel and tar lining the raw and tissues of a ragged esophagus. This was the tenth last cigarette of the day. I cough hard, feeling loose ribs shake sorely as I bleat out a gutteral cough and spit brown gobs of lung onto the melting sidewalk. Like a nervous twitch, beer shoots impusively from hand to mouth. The lukewarm piss flows through the scarred highways of throat into acid worn guts mirroring the grime of the city flowing from gutter to sewer. Both the beer and the cigarette champion the knee-jerk reaction created by the tormented consumer in a poor attempt to defend against the ever raging war of social anxiety and self hatred that hold the leash ever tightening on a fleshy, potholed throat.

This war has raged unabashed since the formulative years in the creators mind and now this weathered body bears the outward scars of an internal battlefield.

My flicked cigarette butt explodes onto the ever burning concrete sparking and coming to life like a grainy film of some poor countryside as napalm ravages its lush greenery turning it into a bleak and desolate black poc on the face of an ugly earth. Head down, I walk the familiar steps into the dark bar. I open the door and let light pour in illuminating forgetful faces that hiss back at the intrusion. I force a stiff smile as if I knew something no one else did. I decide to throw whiskey at the fire inside and order rotgut. The burn feels good travelling down as it briefly masks the everpresent burning in my throat. I plunk down at a ragged stool and pretend to be interested in something. All the while the demons in my head multiply screaming their truths to an ever captive one man audience.

"You are a fuckin lowlife piece of shit!"

My smile tightens.

"Nobody here is really your friend, people only tolerate you because youre a fuckin helpless fuck!"

I sink deep a thousand feet into my stool and fumble awkardly in my pocket for a phone.

"Just fuckin leave so people wont feel so fuckin awkward around you!"

I answer an imaginary phone call and make my way to the door where the reception is better.

"Fuckin asshole, you're not important"

I defeatedly walk the block back to my self made prison hopeless. Its just me in there. I lost another battle.