The lullabies we used to hear at night have all been lost, replaced with infomercials and sirens...which comfort us more than the lullabies ever did. Sleep is a foreign word, so we spend the hours walking the streets in search of company. Most places are closed, at least most nice places, but if we spot a neon light, we're in luck.
NEON LIGHTING IS THE DEFINITION OF AN ALL NIGHT ESTABLISHMENT.
All night establishments usually entail hours of alcohol consumption and shooting pool with Frank-the-plumber and Mark-the-divorcee until we're too drunk to remember whether we're solids or stripes. We'll stumble to the bar, order another drink, and look around for that girl named Candy or Sugar.
Home is always so cold, but Sugar-Candy will keep us warm, we know. We get that same empty feeling we had last night. We'll wake up in the morning with the worst hangover in our life and an empty bed (Candy-Sugar left sometime in the night) and we'll stumble to the refrigerator for another beer and swear we'll never drink again.
We always break our promises.
We're as predictable as night and day, and tonight, we'll flip through the channels and try to drown out the never ending sirens (so many sirens it's a wonder anyone's left alive in this city). Then we'll look around at the stacked pizza boxes and chinese food containers, and watch the cockroaches scurry across the floor, and hear the liquid drip into the pot we have next to the bed, (the ceiling always leaks when Mr. Johnson flushes his toilet) and we'll realize how lonely we are.
We'll put our pleather jacket on and walk out the door, the T.V. still droning on about a something-or-other product. We'll find our way to the bar, to Frank and Mark and Candy or Sugar...we've become her regular.
We'll drink, we'll play, we'll laugh, we'll forget how bad life is. But then the day comes again, and when the neon lights go off and Al closes the bar...
reality comes rushing back.
And life,
it still sucks. |
Submission Name: The Lullabies We Used to Hear
