My Listener

"So much is made of the past. Enough about the past. Why do we need to hammer on about it all of the time? Could I just be who I am today, by choice, without the drag and drain of other peoples perception that I’ve been damaged by something that cannot be erased? You know what the real problem is? They are the problem. They want to live there. Dwell in it. Wear it like a fucking badge so that they don’t have to really look at their own fucked-upness."

"Peggy died. She was only 57 years old and she died of thirty years of self inflicted wounds. I don’t want to talk about it and I don't need to talk about it. What is to talk about? Fine. What would you like to hear? She was fucking amazing. She could do any God damn thing that she wanted. Every thing that she put her mind and her hands to became perfection. She was stunning to look at for starters, a bonus gift from God I guess, the obvious reminder just in case she wasn't saying or doing anything at the time, that you would always be less than. Dad used to say she could go out in a potato sack and still be the most beautiful girl in the room. She wouldn't have though. Go out in a potato sack. She put a lot of time and effort into her looks. I don't know why, I guess because she was Peggy Perfect."

"I sound angry? Because Im angry. Of course I am angry. Everyone should be angry. You know we all get a certain amount of born blessings in this life. Some people can sing, some people have great hair, perfect eyelashes… Peggy Perfect got an unfair number of those blessings. Perfect eyelashes are a great example. She didn't have those but you know what she did have? The uncanny ability to apply the perfect amount of makeup in the precise way in the exact places to make her almost perfect face appear to be actually perfect. I once saw her perfectly apply lip liner while sitting on a bar stool with out a mirror while holding a shot glass in the other hand. I couldn't apply lip liner perfectly if I were sitting in front of a fully lit stage mirror with my head held still by an industrial vice grip."

"Did I love her? Yes. I loved her but she made me helpless. She made me watch her self destruct. She made me watch her take everything that was gifted to her and toss it out like rotten fruit. She could have chosen life and happiness and greatness. She could have chosen success at any one or number of the things that she was great at doing. She could have…she didn’t. It’s a bullshit thing, you know, alcoholics giving the people that love them helplessness."

"You know, I want to be more angry or sad or any feeling about the fact that she died than about the fact that she quit living. She quit living so long ago that it feels like I’ve been mourning for her forever. I have been mourning her for more years than I got to enjoy her and she was here the whole time. It is shocking to think of the number of years that we waited for her light to come back on. It never did."

"Do you not think that I tried? We all tried, well, not all of us but enough. Forget about anyone else, I tried. Every single bloody time that she made a move in the right direction, every single time that she managed to stay sober for more than a week, every rehab, every new job, every anything that made me believe that she might come back, I was there telling her that she could do it. I don’t know when I stopped believing it was possible. I know that I did. Do you think that she knew?"

"Well, enough about that. Look at what time it is! You must be starving! Do you need to go out? Potty before supper? You are my best girl! My only listener. Come on, lets go!"