"No Longer Doing Your Bidding"

NO LONGER DOING YOUR BIDDING

By

Sean Maxwell Garland

                My heart is bitter. Perchance winter is to blame; perhaps the snow and ice are to be accounted for. Maybe my heart is wintry because the last heated woman I gave it to cut a hole out and took what she wanted, leaving me out in the cold to pick up the pieces. Or maybe it’s because of you.

                I once thought that I had found the needle in the hay stack, but after trying to pull through a piece of thread, I began losing sight of her amongst the feed. I cannot recall whether it was then that I met you, but it was then that I was sure of a sudden yearning for you.

                I for one had always found you very attractive in nature, and perhaps the reason for her displeasure towards your aroma is because she scented a threat. She never liked you, but had given you a chance. You were always beautiful and fresh to me. You eased my pain, taught me to laugh and at times you took my breath away. You were well maintained with wavy red hairs and supple skin to which stemmed from the rest of your body and made you a constant sight for sore eyes.

Whenever you weren’t around, I felt alone and too much like myself and low. I’d ask around for you, rummaging for you out of boredom, and you came to me at a cost and a past full of strangers. You promised to make me feel richer, but afterwards when you would disappear out of thin air, I realized by how much you really made me unfortunate.

At times, I drew upon you for inspiration but it was only after a while that I saw how you had erased my motivation. She was committed to me already, fully in love, while you had many suitors. Your popularity was more influential and I found myself on some nights torn in between; she had my love, you had my lust.

Still, I paid the price for your company and for the time you let me sit and waste. Some see to you for comfort while dealing with discomposure, for a sanctuary amidst life’s chaos. But I mostly wanted you to fill the void in my broken heart, but you were only filling my lungs with hot air.

I’ve wanted to stop using you for a while now, yet I haven’t been able to muster up the strength or find a stable willingness to do so. Whereas one’s temptation is difficult to ignore, you became an addiction that could not be silenced; a lingering, hyper active idea that bounced inside the contours of my emptied mind. You gave me the habits of the highly ineffective.

I can no longer deal with you. I can no longer take you places or share you amongst a group of people. I can no longer do your bidding because you are a reason she and I are broken up.

You crumble under pressure by wrapping yourself in layers or become as thin as vapour. You are forever changing, masking your poisonous odour. You stink, and she was right in telling me. She can smell you on me, and I can hear her heart break. Living through those moments, I sadly realize who I am loving more.

It is for this reason, as I break you down and watch your shiny green and red hairs crumble underneath my fingertips, that I can no longer withstand you and flush you for good down a withering drain. You force me to do your bidding, but no more. Why?

Because I don’t love you Mary Jane, or I’d be blowing smoke otherwise.