Dumb old man

I can’t help but sit here, in this tired, creaking house, thinking about you. All these years, and you’re still a thorn in my side, a ghost in my ribcage. You haven’t spoken a word to me, haven’t sent a single glance my way in a decade, and yet here I am, dragging you around like an old suitcase full of bricks. Love? Maybe. Obsession? More like it.

I’ve read the stats—women bounce back quicker, don’t they? They find new meat, new blood. Something fresh to sink their teeth into. Men, we sit in our own guts, waiting for the pain to go stale, but it never does. Nearly 60% of men over 50 end up alone, the data says. Women? They’ve got their networks, their friends, their replacements lined up like soldiers. Me? I’ve got a bottle and memories so sharp they could cut my throat.

There’s this study—I looked it up one night when the loneliness was too much. They say most divorces are initiated by women, and men, we’re just the casualties of the system. Laws and lawyers grind us down like old, worn gears. Trauma? Call it what you want. It’s a goddamn war, and we’re the ones left bleeding out in rented rooms, scrolling through ancient photos like they’re scripture.

The worst part isn’t even the loneliness; it’s the futility. It’s knowing you’re out there somewhere, loving, smiling at someone who isn’t me. Maybe you’ve forgotten me entirely. Meanwhile, I’m stuck here, every nerve ending still tethered to the ghost of who you were.

I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried to let it go, to drown it in liquor or burn it out with cigarettes and weed, but you’re there. Every night when I close my eyes, every time I see a woman with hair like yours or hear a laugh that echoes the way yours did. It’s like an itch in my brain I can’t scratch, a song on repeat, dragging me into the same damn spiral.

It’s like carrying a dead weight in your gut that you can’t cut loose, no matter how hard you try. And you can’t talk about it. Not really. People don’t want to hear this kind of shit. They’ll nod, they’ll pat you on the back, maybe they’ll give you some canned advice about self-care or therapy, but no one actually wants to hear you unravel. Nobody wants to see you bleed.

Sure, I can regurgitate it onto paper—splatter it out like vomit into a toilet. Just because I can doesn’t mean it’s worth a damn. No one wants to see the mess, to smell the stink of it. Pain like this doesn’t get framed on a wall or set to music. It’s just... there. Ugly, raw, and completely useless to anyone but the poor bastard carrying it around.

And when you try to put it out there, to share it, people flinch. They look away, like you’ve got some disease they’re afraid to catch. You learn quickly not to bring it up, not to weigh anyone down with the truth of how fucked up you really are. So you keep it locked inside, chewing on it like old gum, hoping one day it’ll lose its flavor and just disappear.

But it never does.

So you write. You scribble it out in notebooks or type it into the void. You try to turn the pain into something tangible, something you can hold in your hands instead of your heart. But even then, what good does it do? Nobody reads it, or if they do, do they get it? They skim the surface, nod at the words, but do they feel the rot underneath? Do they understand what it’s like to have someone live rent-free in your head for a decade, to be haunted by someone who isn’t even dead?

You tell yourself it’s catharsis, that putting it down will make it hurt less. And maybe it does for a minute. But then the silence creeps back in, and the memories come crawling up like spiders, and you’re right back where you started. Alone. Empty. Staring at a blank page, wondering why the hell you even bother.

Because at the end of the day, no one wants to see it. No one wants to hear it. The world doesn’t have time for men who can’t move on. It doesn’t have time for the ones who got left behind.

And why should they?

“Move on.” “There are plenty of fish in the sea.” But you don’t just move on from all these years of wanting something you can’t have. You don’t just forget the way someone made you feel alive, even if that life was poison.

Maybe this is my punishment. Maybe this is what I deserve for holding on too tight or not tight enough. All these years later, you’re still here, in my head, in my chest, in every empty corner of my life. And I hate you for it.

But not as much as I hate myself for ever thinking I had your heart or even a chance. For allowing it to happen in the first place. I should have just gone home that night, all those years ago. I’d rather never have loved than have loved and lost love.