"You make me feel like, I'm not good enough," the words I've wanted to say for so many years leave my lips with ease now as rehears in the mirror.
"Are you talking to me," Alice asks.
I turn to see her standing in the bathroom doorway. I hadn't even realized that she was home, and I don't know how long she's been listening. I've been venting in the mirror for at least ten minutes, trying to come to grips with my life and staring myself in the face. I've got problems, but I've made them myself.
"Hey, Alice, I didn't hear you come in," I smile at her.
"I heard a lot," her voice says she's pissed.
"I don't think you have all the context."
"That I make you feel like trash. That you think my accomplishments are greater than yours and you can't be satisfied with just being yourself," Alice asks as if I'm one of her patients.
I contemplate before answering. The cat is already out of the bag, she knows how I feels. But she's going to try to make me feel bad about my feelings. It's manipulation, it's her greatest skill. Even now, I know what I want to say but I'm not sure if that's what she wants me to say. She's supposed to help people be proud of who they are and carry themselves with pride; instead she uses all those skills to break people down and make them hate themselves.
"I hate when you try to make me feel like the bad guy for having reasonable feelings. I'm not wrong, I'm not bad and I'm not one of your therapy patients. You constantly keep me in a loop of feeling like trash and then being in love with you. It's not healthy, it's wrong. I'm sorry, but I can't keep doing this."
"So what are you going to do? Go be an engineer? You graduated, but then never did any work. You're starting from zero; all your knowledge is outdated," Alice smiles as if she's won.
"You're doing it right now. You're shaming me for accomplishing something I should be proud of. The only reason I haven't found work engineering is because I moved here to be with you. But you lied about loving me. You lied about how great the city was. You lied about our future. You lied about everything."
"I can see you're upset right now. But have you stopped to consider your anger is misplaced? Could the poison you're directing at me really is for yourself?"
"No, fuck you Alice. That worked too many times. I'm done, I'm packing up my stuff and leaving."
"Where will you live," she shouts.
"I'm going to buy a bus ticket home. If I have to sleep in the bus station until then, I don't care."
"You really think you can survive on your own," she laughs smugly. The mask that briefly slipped is back in place.
"I won't know unless I try. By the way, poison is when you bite an animal. Venom is when the animal bites or spits at you."
Author Comments: I started making YouTube videos again, this one did well. It made me really happy even if I wasn't satisfied with the audio. Am I doing too much? YouTube, writing books, and working full time.
