Depression

Harbour

You no longer the man, that’s a bitter pill to swallow/All I know is I’m wallowing, self-loathing and hollow…

It all seems so festive from here. I’ll bet the air is filled with competing music bleeding into the promenade from the various bars and restaurants. I imagine new couples still in a whirlwind of new emotions basking in the welcoming glow of the neon lights. I envision the embers of older romance being sparked by the electricity in the air. I imagine the escape this area provides; the veil of serenity lightly shielding all that awaits after the parties and the sweet smells and the pleasant breezes. I look on from my world of worry onto a whimsical harbor where everything is new, the Wheel rotates seductively on the pier, and the setting sun bounces rays off the river, making everything seem more vibrant. And as I make my commute from one deflation to the next disappointment, I see it all so painfully vividly.

The pearly white beams and twinkling golden hue of the MGM stands amongst its surroundings as the centerpiece of a reclamation project. Its perch, slightly above the other buildings situated in the valley of the National Harbor, dominate the eye from all that surrounds it. It’s exorbitant. It’s opulent. It’s immaculate.  And I fucking hate it.

That damn building is omnipresent. I see it when I leave for work. I see it when I come home. I see it FROM my home. I see its glow, continuous and confident, refusing to be dimmed by short days and long shadows. I see the Wheel meandering about lightheartedly, while its patrons look onto the frigid and congested urban sprawl, memories no longer focused on having to navigate it daily. The moment is fleeting, but in them I can’t help but to long for living temporarily, and not the Sisyphean task of simply surviving.

As the traffic crawls along on I-495, I routinely glance over to see something jubilantly defiant in its existence and juxtaposition to all that occurs around it. I see a happiness that I can’t seem to find and an assuredness that I grasp at futilely. I loathe what I see because I loathe the unforeseen obstacles placed between us, and because of this, I envy something that I don’t even have a full view of.

I’m enamored with a dream, a promise that is often unfulfilled and underwhelming. What I believed to be solace and protection only exists to exacerbate what I feel. What was supposed to be an oasis from a distance is really more of the norm up close. There is no momentarily escaping life, because life’s only escape is permanent.

But that’s how it works, this pesky, nagging depression and self-doubt. It can make things seem whole and pristine and exorbitant and opulent and immaculate. It can fill you with resentment for all the happy people, happy things, and happy places, jealous such pleasure doesn’t exist in your own psyche. It’s neither healthy nor rational. It’s absurd to torture myself by envisioning this place as if it were simply a laminated postcard hanging askew in a drafty dungeon. Furthermore, it’s embarrassing to long for a place that I never found to be anything but a source of great annoyance…

The air is filled with a mishmash of sterilized pop songs and asinine teenage gossip. New couples aimlessly walk hand-in-hand, oblivious to others that have to swerve into fresh manure to get around them. Their love is fresh and broadcast for the world to view and like and comment on with each filter and pointless caption. Older couples sit at restaurants sipping Pinot quietly as they both make fruitless attempts to recapture what has long been dead. They retell the same stories and traffic in the lives of their friends, as if attempting to flee their own shared misery. I imagine this place as the Phoenix of hipster racism and undeserved vanity flying across the water from the charred remains of a city that once proudly flaunted its diversity. As I walk among it all, I’m oddly comforted. What I deemed to be whole is comprised of a bunch of pieces as broken as the rest of us.

I’ll be back 2018 to give you the summary. A.J. Armstrong is the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities

Still

Baby, you can lay there.

Baby, you don’t have to go out. Your friends seem to want you too, though.

I want to be forgotten, yet remembered. I want to be the one to poison my ego, not them. Why aren’t they sad about me being sad? Hell, is she? But really, how are they so happy when I can’t seem to be? What don’t I understand?

Baby, you dragged me to that used CD shop and your face lit up and you picked up this Terence Trent D’Arby album. I don’t know how you came to know about him, but you put this in my hands and…your face; baby your mouth curved up at one end. It wasn’t a smile but…but I have to take what I can get. You handed this to me and held your hands out. You weren’t begging, but you darted your eyes back and forth between the CD case and the counter, just hoping. And I didn’t think twice about it; anything to give you happiness is a small price to pay…

Music has dictated my mood for as long as I can remember. It’s emboldened me enough to throw eggs through your windshields. It’s infused me with enough confidence to saunter up behind your girlfriend at a pre-dawn. It’s blared through my headphones on the train, helping me forget that where I arrive is a stop, and not a destination. It’s helped me to believe, to dream, to cry, to pontificate, to seduce…to fucking smile. Knowing that, why can’t it get me off this couch?

Baby, I want to see you smiling. I-I just don’t know what to do and I can’t lie to you; I wish that I could, because seeing you like this makes me sad.

I remember when you would run around my office building, selling your paintings and writings to my coworkers for fifty cents. They couldn’t believe anybody so young had the confidence you had, baby…

I remember how much Christmas meant to you; baby, I would hang your stocking up over the TV and watch your face when you reached in it for our 12 days of Christmas. I used to cringe when you would go up that ladder to hang lights on our gutters, but you smiled the entire time and I just, I..uh…I don’t know where that kid went. 

Maybe I’ve been insensitive. Maybe I just don’t understand. I don’t know. I just miss my baby. 

The television illuminated the room, as it was the only light that flowed in, even in the midday. The shades were completely drawn closed. The sight of barren lawns and naked shrubbery only served as conduits and understandable excuses. That TV failed to brighten anything other than my complete disinterest.

Baby, what happened?

Baby…please, PLEASE tell me how I can help you. 

…I ju…I just don’t know what to do, Joan. He won’t move. No…he hasn’t said much of anything. My baby is hurting and I don’t know…I-I don’t know, Joan…

The sun’s sudden intensity shone directly on my face, making my lower eyelids flinch painfully upward, as they barely had to shield my bloodshot eyes over the past week. Why was she still here? And- for the love of everything holy- why did she open these curtains??

My back yelled at me as I adjusted myself. My legs seemed to exhale as I straightened them out onto the arm of the couch. My neck resigned itself to an uncomfortable state of commiseration and had completely gone numb; it had no plans of returning during my sudden readjustment. My stomach growled, awakened at the idea that its’ host may not be dead after all. My shoulder, completely defying my brain’s wishes, relaxed at her touch.

Baby, I tried; I made an appointment for you. This isn’t you. Not this time of year. You aren’t yourself. I can’t force you to do shit but- for my health- please see this specialist I found. Happy birthday.

A.J. Armstrong is the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World Of Oddities

My Beautiful Mistake

I followed my heart but every time I do, it gets me lost and left in the dark/But I think it’s clear this time, I guess; we’re just not compatible…

We were terrible for each other. I get it; we were both so self-destructive that we needed each other to justify why we were so fucked up. Our intoxication was killing us and we didn’t care. We kissed with numb lips and altered emotions. The arguments took such a toll that you finally realized how unhealthy our encounters were. It would be for the best…if I weren’t so worried about your wellbeing.

I didn’t even know you were in so much pain the first time we decided to deal with each other. You hid it just as well as I hid mine. You laughed with the same halfhearted smile creeping along your face; it fooled me at first. The jokes didn’t mean anything to you, either. I never noticed and kept feigning confidence and goofiness. Who would have thought a friendship birthed out of keeping up appearances would become something much more? Our arms show the stress of life’s obstacles and each alternating puff alleviated us from it all.

The worst part is that I barely remember. Every vodka-chased pill and loosely rolled Swisher Sweet was more than temporary bliss. Everything was so hazy; it was picturesque in such a terrible way. Descending into a hellish trap never seemed so desirable before. Judgment wasn’t allowed to exist in this glossy-eyed microcosm. Every vulnerable and slurred sentence only spoke to the shared injury we wrongly attempted to run from. Every blank stare became so irresistible and made everything that followed so uninhibited. Desperately holding onto someone falling off the same slope felt oddly comforting.

It is what it is…

I cling to the memories, trying to leave out the toll it eventually took on us both. The final argument was unhealthy and both our stubbornness was only fueled by the intoxication. The very thing- our thing- that made us close tore us apart. Our hands never stayed off each other but this final encounter was created out of the wrong passion. I whispered terrible things and grabbed for your neck clumsily. I saw fear in those dilated pupils and can only now cope with those actions properly.

In our self-destruction, everything was so impulsive. I just hope the death of our friendship provides a healthier lifestyle for us both. Our relationship wasn’t created in sobriety so I never act on my many passing thoughts. Those hazel eyes and slender legs came with a price I almost killed myself in paying. All of those altered times meant everything yet left no moments I can specifically recount. Clarity didn’t come easy because of what I barely remember and I can only hope you feel the same.

A.J. Armstrong is a relieved friend of both and the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities