therapy

» changed

"I hate movies where they have a deadbeat parent realize they're being deadbeat parents and suddenly show up in their kid's lives and hug them and say that they love them and I just hate it so so much."

"Why?" I sucked on the end of a cigarette, just for the heck of it, just for the moment of burning up my lungs. Just for a moment before it ends up taking a couple of minutes off my life.

"Because that never happens in real life. It just doesn't magically work that way. Someone doesn't rip their bad habits out of their mind and throw them in a nearby trashcan. Whenever I see the scene play out in front of my eyes, my heart tugs my ribs. It aches and tries to crawl out of the small spaces between my bones."

"But, love, people can change."

"Ah, that's what we are told. You've been fooled, my friend. No one changes. Yes, our skin cells get replaced by every second but we are still the same sinners as we were yesterday. Our paths could change, we can dye our hair, we can get contacts to change our eye colors, we can get surgery, but we are still the same people that ended up drinking too much on a Sunday night, regretting everything and nothing. We're still us.

And that's why it's too hard for real people—not speaking off of paper with emotions directed—to change. If it was so easy to change, we would be happy by now. We wouldn't be having this conversation. You wouldn't go home sighing. I wouldn't leave without tracing memories to empty bottles that will forever decorate the scratched-up table back at home. The empty bottles on the nightstand. The empty bottles next to the computer, jumping at the sudden clicks of the mouse. The empty bottles dangling by the edges of his fingertips. He won't change. He can clean up and throw away the bottles and act as if he didn't yell at his wife or talk to himself in the bathroom, but man, there will be new empty bottles tomorrow. And it will start all over."

"Then it's my mission to teach you the steps to change." I tapped the cigarette against the ashtray.

"Good luck, cause you're definitely gonna need it."