new year's day

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numbing the pain

If I stopped, the pain in my chest would start again. It stabbed, radiated and throbbed so I kept moving. As fast as I could. Anything to stop the pain.

I followed Tara into the Ladies and watched as she took a foil packet out of her purse and opened it to reveal two small pills. She offered one to me in the small, grungy cubicle. I took it and washed it down with my straight-up vodka, in the blue light of the dirty bathroom.

Out on the dance floor, I let the base from the DJ rhythmically beat through my body, making it feel like my heart was beating in time.

Anything to stop the pain.

Effects from the pill took hold and I danced for hours, stopping only for more vodka and a joint we smoked out on the street, away from the cigarette smokers.

In my own world on the dance floor, I let myself only hear the beat of the music and I only saw the strobe lighting flash the room. I closed my eyes and felt my arms and legs move of their own accord as song after song was played. I didn’t even know if I was moving as I closed my eyes.

That night, I danced for hours under the influence of alcohol and elicit drugs. The repetitive base thumped through my body and I closed my eyes, feeling only the music. Letting the dark-haired man dance up against me, his hands exploring my body as far as they dared, his brazen lips grazing my neck as we danced.

I didn’t know if I lead him outside, or if I followed him, but I found myself down a nearby residential street, back against a brick wall, gasping as my new friend half-kissed, half-bit, my neck.

A brief moment of clarity hit me and it asked what I was doing outside someone else’s house, the crisp night air sending a shiver through my body, as he ran his hands over my bra-covered breasts.

A familiar pain suddenly staked through my heart, causing me to double over in pain. To silence the voice and to help ease the pain, I took the guy’s face in my hands, directing his back to my face, kissing him as hard as I could.

I let him fuck me in the alley beside my house, against a brick wall, next to my neighbour’s rubbish bins, put out for collection in the morning. I couldn’t remember what his name, let alone if he was any good.

I remember climbing into bed, exhausted, as daylight broke through the gap in the curtains. As my head hit the soft pillow, I pulled my body into the foetal position, waiting for sleep to wash over my body. Instead, I was engulfed by grief. I gulped for air as soundless tears racked my body.

He had left.

He had chosen her.

Not me.

He was gone.

It killed me.

Sleep didn’t come quickly enough, so I downed a sleeping tablet. I had tried to forget him. I had used drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, and casual sex to give me something else to think about, something else to feel badly about.

He couldn’t be forgotten.

The pain in my heart wouldn’t ease.