Ten Times a Day, Every Day, a Stranger

Sometimes when I get up and emerge from the mists of slumber, my whole room hurts, my whole bedroom. The view from the window hurts. Kids go to school. People go shopping. Everybody knows where to go. Only I don’t know where I want to go. I get dressed, blearily, stumbling, hopping about to pull on my trousers. I go and shave with my electric razor. For years now, whenever I shave, I’ve avoided looking at myself in the mirror. I shave in the dark or around the corner. I don’t like looking at myself anymore. I’m scared by my own face in the bathroom. I’m hurt even by my own appearance- I see yesterday’s drunkenness in my eyes. I sit at the table, sometimes my hands give way under me and several times I repeat to myself, “I’ve victoried myself away, I’ve reached the peak of emptiness, I’ve reached the peak of emptiness and everything hurts.”
Even the walk to the bus stop hurts, and the whole bus hurts as well. I lower my guilty looking eyes. I’m afraid of looking people in the eye. Sometimes I cross my palms and extend my wrists, because I feel guilty even about this once too loud a solitude which isn’t loud any longer, because I’m hurt not only by the escalator which takes me down to the infernal regions below, I’m hurt even by the looks of the people traveling up, each of them has somewhere to go, while I’ve reached the peak of emptiness and don’t know where I want to go
I’m hurt now. I’m hurt by this whole town in which I live. I’m hurt by this whole world- because towards morning, certain beings come to me. Beings not unfamiliar to me. They come slowly, but surely, up the escalator of my soul and not only the faces come into focus, but also certain horrible events. Just like a portrait. Or a film. A documentary not only about how I was ever madly in love, but also how I failed people. Everything I ever said, everything I ever did. Everything is always against me. The whole world hurts, and even the guardian angel of mine hurts. How many times I felt like jumping from the fifth floor, from my apartment where every room hurts, but always at the last moment, my guardian angel saves me. He pulls me back. I victoried myself away. I’ve reached the peak of emptiness