the sun looks good on you - solangelo

3- nobody in new york

i had a dream in my sleep and not much of it made sense. i was at the café, making a latte, but when i went to serve it, the café had dissolved into a field of grass. the sky is stark blue. i look down and my latte i was holding had turned into a pomegranate. i drop the pomegranate and look around. this new change of setting doesn't bother me or surprise me in my dream. a wind blows and i turn around and there's will, the random blond guy from the café. but it feels like i know him personally.

"am i dead or alive?" i ask.

he shrugs his shoulders. "doesn't matter. no one's here but me and you."

and he kisses me and it feels natural, his warm hands against my cold cheeks. so i let him. and kiss back. he's alive against me.

i wake up. it's evening and the street bustles outside. my mind spins as i start to forget bits and pieces of the dream. but i don't forget the end and how natural it felt. how normal.

i feel a bit of shame about having a dream about kissing a customer. why him? i've only seen him two times. it doesn't matter. it's just a dream. people have weird dreams all the time. i stare at myself in the mirror as i brush my teeth. my dark eyes stare back and it doesn't feel like they're mine. i forget that i actually look the way i do. i don't recognize myself anymore. i splash water in my face and leave the bathroom.

i don't have work today.

i want to stay inside and do nothing again, but i feel like shit. i haven't seen the world outside of my apartment or outside of the café in a month. i get groceries delivered as most grocery stores are closed at night and i don't need to leave the house for much else.

for a moment, i wish i was one of the customers who'd go to cafés with their friends and go dancing at night. they gossip on their phones to willing ears. they have people to spend their time with. my job causes me to drift away from any friends that i have as the nightshift and it's hard to hang out with people regularly with an irregular schedule. i don't even know if anyone even likes me except hazel anymore. i haven't spoken a word to anyone else in a very long time. maybe it's my fault. the thought is distressing me and i force myself not to care.

it doesn't matter.

you were meant to be alone anyway.

you were always going to be alone.

and as dark and angsty and unhappy as these thoughts sound, they comfort me. if I remove the expectation of having friends, there is no loss at all. no feelings of distress. no overwhelming loneliness.

just numbness as if there was a hole in my chest that is not so painful. i can live with that. i have all these years.

and so i compress any emotions regarding loneliness and the fate of being an eternal hermit until it is palatable and swallow it down. there. that's better. i'm going to be alone forever and that's okay.

i wander around the apartment like a ghost caught in a cycle. i'm bored maybe i'll eat something so i open the fridge. i have no appetite so nevermind and i close the fridge. i walk a few places until i reach my bed. maybe i'll sleep a while longer. but then again, i'm not very tired so i leave and reach for the remote for the tv. but there's nothing i really want to watch. eventually, i'm back at the fridge again.

there has to be more in life than this. right? at least there can something more i can do with a day off.

i regret slowly letting my relationships fizzle into nothingness, but i can't help but feel helpless. as if there was nothing i could do. it'd be wrong to blame them so i point the blame at me. but there's no changing me. it seems like i've been born to be alone.

people like my dad and my stepmom say that my isolationism was a result of my mom and sister dying, but i disagree. my mom and my sister dying fucked me up, sure, but kids never liked me when i was little. that was never different. there was always a veil separating me from them and i never understood why. i decided that it didn't matter and clung to bianca until one day, bianca was long gone and i realized that the veil had become a wall.

i'm not pessimistic. i'm not "half empty" or "half full". i'm just empty.

i resign to listening to the sounds of the streets of the bustling city that never sleeps by the window. sometimes i wish the city would quiet. it never is, day or night. but tonight, i'm glad that there's sound to fill my ears. it's not enough to fill the void i feel in my chest, but it's enough to fill my mind.

a man below me is talking on his phone loud enough for me to hear a snippet. "...of course i still care, but i can't afford to right now!" he sounds frustrated and i wonder who he's talking to or what he's talking about. is it rent that he can't afford or something else? looking at his fancy, cleanly pressed clothes, it's not rent. he swiftly walks out of earshot before i can hear more. he and so many other lives walk down these streets everyday. they all have such separate lives. they go to work, engage in business, talk to and hang out with their friends and their family, and have significant others. they go to offices and bars and festivals and cafés. they could be my customers or maybe not. they could order a latte of a mocha or a tea because they're trying to fix their sleep schedule.

my thoughts drift again back to the dream. it was so vivid before and now is fuzzy and hardly coherent. but i know i kissed him. out of all people i see in the café with intricate and complex lives, why him? the more i think about it, the more i normalize the dream. yeah, i guess i wouldn't mind kissing him. he's not bad looking. he looked nice. but it's not gonna happen and i don't want it to happen. it just is. it's not gonna keep me up, it's not going to affect me. i just can't help but wonder what he's doing now or if he'll ever come back and we'll meet again. and why. why would he? i'm nobody and act like nobody. everyone else has a complex life but me. they go to cafés, i just work in one. they have friends and loved ones and i hardly have myself. they have hobbies and interests and they percieve the world bigger and beyond what it is. i just see what is. i'm nobody. i start to get upset again.

i stay by the window for another hour and it calms me.

it's okay that you're nobody, the city reassures me. you're nobody in new york. if you just sit and listen, you can be everyone.