'Till the Ground Holds Me in It's Arms

Grotesquely Human

 
Sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to your chest, music from your speakers blasting. You somehow haven't gotten any noise complaints from your neighbors yet. Not like you would even answer the door if they came knocking anyways. Being completely alone in a new city has made you a little paranoid about strangers.

You were just staring into space, letting yourself be swept away by the music. Mind so full that you might as well be thinking about nothing at all. Focusing on the lyrical themes of anarchy and hate. 

Dramatic, emo ass lyrics. The emotions are just so well conveyed, so strong, it almost feels like they're singing to you. For you. You couldn't help but let yourself be sucked in by them…

You snap yourself out of it before you give into another parasocial relationship. You had started making an effort to not fall in love with anyone you thought you could relate to. Or who made a good joke. Or who looked at you for more than 2 seconds. You built enough strong walls after having one too many “go ask her out as a joke” pranks in high school. 

That was just one of the ways you got picked on. Being alternative, listening to different music from everyone else, and being socially awkward just made you an easy target. Not like any of those things really mattered, kids were cruel and would pick on anything that moved.

You're different now, well not really, but you're in a different city now so, same-same or whatever. It had been 3 years since you graduated high school when you moved out of your hometown.  

Being in that town was just too draining. Seeing the kids you went to school with would just bring back so many memories of crying yourself to sleep. Not to mention your dysfunctional, uptight family, breathing down your neck over every single decision you make, but never helping you make your way through life.

Holding grudges sucked. You just needed to get out. 
Eventually you figured fuck it, you'd just do it on your own.

So that's how you ended up here, almost a year after you moved to a town a 5 hour drive away from where you grew up, blasting your favorite ‘please just let me dissociate.’ playlist, mentally preparing yourself to go to work.  

The only place that didn't care that you had been fired at every single job you worked at before— because you just couldnt be fucked to actually care about the minimum wage jobs— was a run down little diner. The skeevy owner pays you under the table and makes you give him your tips if you don't hide them from him, but at least it pays enough for you to live on your own. 
 
A whole one bedroom apartment, not even a studio!

‘Winning, I guess’

At least the people you work with are cool. The owner is a dick but the manager he hired is at least nicer, and you've kind of made friends with some of the cooks and other waiters. They even invite you to small music shows sometimes, well more like all the time, since one of them is somehow friends with every single person that's in band in this city. 

It's only sometimes that you actually agree to go. 
Honestly you wish you were an extrovert. You love seeing live music, getting to hang out with people you actually like, not having to get drunk alone, sometimes you actually felt like you craved the positive interactions. It just takes you a while to mentally recharge after every outing and sometimes your work friends ditch you when they see their other friends, leaving you alone to feel self conscious in the crowded space. 

You don't blame them though, you'd probably do the same thing if you were them. Ditch the awkward girl who couldn't keep a conversation going and could barely make eye contact with people and—

You roll your eyes at your own self-deprecating thoughts. You really needed to stop pulling yourself down like this, you've actually been doing a lot better for yourself in this city. This is exactly what you needed, a fresh start, a new you.