Feeling Used

I am angry. I am so fucking furious I could bite this cigarette in half. I hate feeling used, unimportant, tossed aside. I did nothing to warrant this besides ignoring all of the completely fucking obvious warning signs. At first I thought I was just being polite, then extra polite, then tolerant, inconvenienced, and finally just self-sacrificing. Luckily, staring at my neighbor’s hummingbird feeder apparently awakens my sense of self-worth. How the hell did I ever get into this situation?

It starts with wanting something you’re not allowed to have, like respect without honor, faith without risk, success without failures, an apple without sin. I want this and I don’t want to pay for it. See, I only want this, just this, nothing else. All of the structure and responsibility around it, I don’t really care to see again. It’s actually easy to get: just ask, ignore, or be funny. Small amounts of “just this” and “only that” grow into larger amounts of “needing this” or “really liking that.” But sometimes, usually after the pleasure or security or silver-lined clouds break for a time, you realize how fucked up it all is. This arrangement, this social contract, this exchange, this relationship, is a slavery. And just then, just immediately for a split second, you can feel a slight coldness in your chest, like an ice cube, sinking down into your heart toward your spine. Grief. Good fucking grief.

I don’t mind being used for things like favors, one-sided conversations, or human ladders. I just want to know I’m being used when I am. If I am being used, I want to know that my personal value as a human is only based on my performance in one specific function. I’m okay with that, when I know it, but I prefer the choice. If you only want one small part of me, do not lead me to trust you with more than that. My life does not grow back.

It’s fucking absurd how disappointed I become when I am used by people who consistently just use people. It’s their M.O., but I still sign up. Fucking Satan. That’s his best talent. I am so much more of an ass than Adam. If I was in that garden, the first tree I visited would’ve been that “bad” one. And if a snake came up to me and promised me knowledge of good and evil from just one bite, I’d say “That’s awesome, I’ll take two apples, I have a girl to impress.” There is no better salesman for my slavery than an empty stomach.

Inevitably, the thing you set out to use ends up using you. Like unwrapping the biggest present at Christmas to find an empty box. I feel cheated, but I cheated first. It is not unfair that my cookie-filled fist is stuck in the jar. Just when you think that doing the right thing makes no practical sense, it ends up being the most practical thing you can do. On the morning after, when I need to prop up or cover or lean my head on something in order to think, I feel hope deferred. In the morning of mourning, when your foolish choices make your brain’s check engine light blink, time stops like looking in a mirror.

I am fucking angry. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The second came when I ignored the first. A third there will not be. That is some life poetry.