Demons, revised

I carefully open my closet door. The demons don't seem to notice or care. Or they realize I'll just slam the door if they try and come out; better to wait for me, the sucker I am, to delve in and see which ones I can find to maul me.

I go inside. I shut the door behind me so no light will disturb me. So nobody will see me.

I walk around in the closet, passing demons to the left and demons to the right, hanging waiting for me to try them on again like old coats.

I walk past the time I told Kate from third grade that she was a big fat stupid and I didn't want to play with her. I ignore how terrible I felt afterwards because I knew she liked me - like, like liked me - and I didn't really think girls were icky at all really.

I walk past the time I punched John in the face in seventh grade because he wouldn't shut up about my momma, even though I knew he was just kidding and I felt even worse afterward because he was my friend and I didn't even get in any real trouble. I walk past the time in eighth grade when John didn't invite me to his birthday party and I knew we wouldn't be friends anymore even though he had been my best friend since kindergarten.

I stop briefly at the time when Jen broke up with me, saying I was Creepy. We were in Love and I thought that meant being completely inseparable but as it turns out some people feel things more deeply than others and It wasn't Her it was Me. My hand brushes the sleeve of how I cried for a week and couldn't stop thinking about her for months afterward. I reach into the pocket of what a pathetic individual I was at the time and pull out the comb of how I'm smarter now than I was then, look at it fondly for a few moments before putting it back in the pocket and walking on.

I stop and brush the dust off the time I went to the hospital to see my dad for the last time in junior year. I run my fingers through the lining of how mad I was that he wouldn't stop smoking even though the doctors said he'd have a better chance of survival if he just quit, of how mad I was that he would just give up and leave us just because he had a Habit and that wasn't something he could just break, of how mad I was that he would just leave us like that without even trying, of how mad I was that he didn't think about how we were feeling even though we told him and told him and told him, but mostly of how sad I am that I would never see his face again and how devastated and empty mom and I were after he had gone.

I stare at this demon a good long time.

I walk past the time I told Alice I just didn't care about Us or Where We Were Going or whatever bullshit it is that Couples talk about.

I walk past the time Rachel asked if it was Just about sex and I said Yes.

I walk past the times I woke up in someone else's bed not knowing how I got there because I was too drunk to remember the night before. I walk past when my friends tried to stage an intervention and I punched Roger in the face for telling me that I was Just Like my Father, because my father was a Great Man and I am not my father and at least I'm not killing myself with my drinking and that was a cheap shot and he knew it.

I walk past the time I quit my job because I was just some corporate cog who was easily replaceable and completely ignorable.

I stop for a while at the time Susan asked if We were Going Anywhere and I said Yes, but I was lying because we were where we were and I didn't know where we were supposed to Go from wherever we were except maybe marriage and death, but I lied and said yes because I'd finally learned honesty wasn't always the best policy. I straighten the collar of her realizing I was just going through the motions and I came back to our apartment to find a note saying Goodbye Forever because she had truly Loved me and how I Broke her Heart. I gently smooth out the wrinkles of my finding her dead in the tub, having drank a bottle each of vodka and cyanide.

I stare at this demon a good long time.

I pick up the scarf I’d made from my guilt. It’s heavy, as usual. The barbs I’d woven in are sharp as ever, and just standing with it is enough to make my hands scream. I briefly entertain the thought of strangling myself with it for the thousandth time, but set it back on the rack instead before carrying on.

There are only a handful of other demons left. I walk past the rest without a second glance. I’m no longer in the mood to deal with them.

Finally I come to the demon I came hunting for. I stare at it. My oldest demon, knitted piecemeal from fibers of all the others. It is the demon of my loneliness, handcrafted by myself over many years.

I frown. Who needs a lot of friends? Who needs to be With somebody? I have people I trust, people who care about me. So What if it's only a handful of people? That's more than most folks meet in a lifetime.

"You are not a demon," I say. "You are nothing. Look around you, look at your friends. These, these are demons." I pick it up off the rack by the hanger. "There are so many ways for a man to fall apart. So many ways drown in your own misery. I've dealt with so much over all these years; you are the least of my worries." I walk out of the closet. I stare at it again. Its ugliness stares back. I know it as my own ugliness. "You are nothing," I shout, "and I have no reason to hold on to you!"

I throw it out the window.