Pisaries Creator

The conversations were getting a little stale between us. You know the ones between two people. If it had been food in the refrigerator, I would’ve identified it as bread shoved way in the back on the bottom shelf, behind everything else, because someone in the house has a problem with bread buying. The hunt worsens as the conversation continues. After you push the shelf contents to the side while searching for something you know you bought, you spot the unopened loaf of bread and find it all moldy from end to end. This would be our current situation—white and green mold stuffed in between our sentences.

We occasionally squeeze a little bit of spoiled mayonnaise near our conversation’s end for good measure, where the adequate punctuation should be because we are too enmeshed in our power struggle, and neglect to end our sentences properly. Don’t let me open the non-dairy milk carton. Yeah, I’m one of those people. Does it mean less kids are being kidnapped when one of their faces aren’t on cartons anymore. I guess milk doesn’t do a body good anymore.

This is how our nights have gone for the past few weeks when we come home from work. We both have jobs during the day and don’t need to be around each other as much. You keep trying to find a good piece of bread in the moldy loaf to eat especially when it’s dark outside. Yes, that slice doesn’t exist until you get more bread. We realize it. We don’t own it though.

Neither one of us is at that point to buy more bread so every Sunday, we go to our separate restaurants and spend money on food we could make at home. I don’t have to imagine I can still hear him through the door. I hear him one hundred percent of the time. Yelling about this. Screaming about that. Even in his mumbling, I can hear clearly. He tells me all kinds of information I don’t care to know.

“My Converse shoes are so gross. How’d they get so dirty? At least I’m not stupid enough to put them in the washing machine. What moron would do that?”

“Me, I’m the moron.”

Wait for a second while I do my proper curtsy to you, the King of the house. I bite my tongue to not say more. What I want to tell him is the downtown streets are dirty as hell. There’s not only a sun beating down on exposed flesh making people sweat, but the stank is damn near intolerable due to the homeless having nowhere to urinate. I want to tell him this is what happens when you pay the city your hard-earned Benjamins. The money gets funneled into every kind of project except where it needs to go. Every bad circumstance doubles each year. You know those people on skid row that have no knowledge of the 1980s band called Skid Row. I’m not sure whether to cry or throw my arms up in rage for his stupidity.

We come back home from eating at separate restaurants. A good ten minutes has passed. He opens his door, thinking this will entice me out of my sanctuary. What he doesn’t know is I’ve put on noise cancelling headphones and listening to some of the best songs ever made prior to 2010 and after 1987. I don’t hear the creaking noise of his door.

The only way for me to know he’s doing this is during an argument where he tells me what he’s done in the past. Again, I want to tell him I don’t care what you’ve done. I wasn’t aware of it in the first place. I want to tell him to shut the hell up. He stares at me with his laser focused eyes. He doesn’t intimidate me. This is all for his show. He knows no other way of being a human being and must apply principles to me he doesn’t want to follow himself to feel good about himself. Making up rules one day and breaking them the next is what he does.

“How about butting out of my life for a few hours and focusing on yours,” I say.

“What you mean?”

“Just because you think you’ve outsmarted me in your pathetic game doesn’t mean you’re the wiser of the two.”

“That’s exactly what it means,” he says. “You’ve always loved me for my pure ego.”

“You’re an idiot,” I tell him. “But what’s the point of convincing you otherwise. If I say one thing, you’re going to claim the opposite. We cut each other just enough to keep living in misery, neither one of us bleeding to death. We’re the Romeo and Juliet but without the poison.”

“You’re telling me you want to end the little that we have.”

“So, you agree our relationship could be better. I mean it’s hard when only one person tries.”

“And you think this’s all my fault?” he says.

“Glad you see it my way,” I say, sarcastically. “I want you to cut me deep enough so there’s no hope in saving me.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he says.

“Quit trying to dodge facing the truth. How many times have I shoved clothes into a duffel bag and headed to a motel for a few nights? I don’t have enough fingers to count them. I’m sick of all this shit.”

“And I’m not! Are you kidding me!”

“We use too many napkins to clean up our messes and are forever buying two-ply napkins, but they’re never thick enough.”

“What do napkins have to do with us,” he raises his voice. “I never should’ve said hi back to you that day.”

“I should’ve realized what a bonehead you were.”

“You knew what I was from the start.”

“Don’t blame this all on me. I can’t believe you have the balls.”

I know he wanted to continue. I did not. I left the room, slamming the door behind me. Shit, that felt so good. I want to slam all the doors. I’m too mad to punch a wall. I’m too caring to burn his shoes. I’m too numb to stuff my face with chocolate.

We do nothing together anymore. Our tolerance has reached an all-time low. Neither one wants to budge and make the first step to reconciling. We are in a moldy funk. It has spread to other places in our bodies. Pretty soon the refrigerator will be the least of our worries. We need someone to come in and pivot us into a new zone. There is no one to come to our rescue. We are alone in our mess. When will one of us be ready to buy more bread? Will we even want to acknowledge it exists?