From the Passenger Seat

Happened again. The third person. The passenger.

Slowly over the last few days I had felt it creeping up and I had hoped that it would dissipate. Too much time on my hands. Too much solitude. Not enough money to be in public. I had tried to go walk. Alone, in the woods. The trees were tall and kind and the sun was scattered over the ground like so much broken glass. It helped for a moment. My brain absorbing the leaves and breeze and greens and nothing else.

On the walk back to the car it crept back in. I became the passenger again. I could see my life through the window and I could see myself and I knew. Who I was, what I was doing, what I have done, what I will do. I knew it from the outside. I could see it from a stranger's perspective.

Another deadbeat.

Lazy. Self obsessed.

Taking advantage of the people around you and taking no responsibility for yourself. Not only making nothing of yourself, but actively making things worse. Actively taking others down with you. Or trying to, no matter how much you'd deny it. 

It was no wonder they avoided time. Why they kept their distance. They pitied you, only. They weren't going to wrap themselves up in your mess. They were being kind. Only.

All around you, pity. At best. 

Days passed and the perspective stuck. Occassionally I could shake it for a moment or two. Driving, folding laundry, sleeping. But it would always come back, like a brick to the chest, knocking me back into the passenger seat. Back to this actual, extended, reality. The way things were when "I" was removed from it.

Are you going to do this to them forever?

Constantly remind them how useless you are? How hopeless? How no matter how much they help you, you will always find ways to let them down?

Even now you can't help but pity yourself. Pathetic. You had it in your hands you fucking dirtbag. You had it figured out. Why did you do this? Why do you ever do this? Opportunity after opportunity gets thrown at you and you walk away. Every time. Wasting years and hope and the love of those around you and now, what do you have? Exactly what you deserve. 

You've been letting them down for years. You'll continue to let them down. 

Or you can one last time.

Will it hurt them? Yes. But it will fade and instead of years, decades of disappointment, it only happens once more. Every time you set yourself up to succeed you fuck it up. You can say you'll change as much as you'd like. Hell, you might even believe it. 

But you can't, can you?

One last time.

From the passenger seat I can only watch. My body is on the couch. My eyes staring out the living room windows. I don't see anything. 

The driver is right. I know it. It's the same message I've been hearing for years from them. 

If you had listened in 2017 they'd have moved on by now. Instead, you've done more damage than you can ever measure and will only do more. If you had listened in 2019, that cold March evening, they'd be passed you now. On with their lives. Some, would never have you around to fuck them up in the first place. Think of how much you could have prevented.

And yet, you're still fucking here.

From the passenger seat, I know. The driver is right. I can see it all from a distance. I can watch me move through time and relationships and jobs and homes. I can feel the weight of me inside people. I can feel the exhaustion. The pain of it all. Of who I am.

From the passenger seat, I know. The driver is right.