I came in here with an ego.

I still have one, but it’s different, now. The thing I’m talking about coming in with was kinda like a semi-aborted duck fetus I was trying to wear as a mask, or some metaphorical shit like that. It was gruesome, dude. It was feral and dead at the same time.

It wasn’t even really me.

I don’t say that as a brag, I say that because it’s true: it was not me. It’s not even that I wished it was. I didn’t know there were defined lines around myself, I didn’t know where I ended and, no, I actually didn’t, I didn’t know where I began to begin with. I just knew I had this half-aborted duck fetus, wasn’t it grand. It said shit like “I saw my mom die,” and it seemed like that worked, to make people listen.

People listening is the same as being proud of yourself, correct? Correct??

They didn’t even really listen to me is the thing, because, as we’ve established, I didn’t know I even really existed at all. They listened to that aborted duck fetus, which also said shit like, “did you know how fucked up a duck’s penis is?”

They’d know then that I was strange, unique. Kind of Someday Angeline-esque. This was a book I read every few weeks as a kid. As a quote-unquote-gifted-child, I found a lot of solace, there.

I did not find me, though. In the book, I mean. Or the duck fetus. Or my mom’s death. Or reality, like, at all.

It was hard to hold it up. That’s where drinking came in. I coiuld forget, when I was drinking, how much my arm hurt. I could forget I was holding it up at all.

“I saw my mom die, you know,” I’d slur out at the bar, 2am at I was 22 and I was born on May 22nd what a square combination, amazing. So satisfying.

I didn’t say that part. I didn’t think it was worthwhile.

And BOOM, yes, it’s there. There I am.

I’d shut my eyes, take another drink, and the world shimmered.

I listened to a podcast episode once about the epidemic of male loneliness in America. I think they meant the USA, but they said America, so maybe it was that, instead. I feel like the men I met in Belize had friends, though, so. Unsure.

It talked about how most men only really have their brothers or a boy they grew up with to name as true, real friends. And even within these, they rarely felt comfortable enough to actually fess up, to tell what they knew about the ugly little part of themself that hurt. What a way to live. I know, I lived like that.

It’s not that I held those secrets behind my teeth, though, so maybe not. I didn’t exist to begin with. Remember?

Nothing could be ugly, so long as I was hidden behind this fucking duck fetus, wow, I didn’t think I’d still be–

Anyway. Ego. I had that, not this. Today I have this, and it’s still kind of raw, and it’s still a fetus, but it lives, and it’s mine, and that little chickadee blinks up at me indignantly now and then, from where they rest against my tit. Thumps solid little fists the defined outline of me, against my heart, which beats, which really beats, you know, I live! Amazing.

It doesn’t bullshit anymore. I sometimes bullshit it, for sure. But it doesn’t let me get away with it at all.

“I’m not very good at this, I think…”

“Shut up. Write more. Feed me.”

ahahahahahahaha what

I’m so tired, y’all. I’m sorry. I’m not even gonna edit this one. Have fun with the duck fetus thing lol