I have my job to use as my escape when shit goes wrong. Mostly the stuff that goes wrong, has nothing to do with my job.

I cannot cope with the everyday struggles of life. It’s ugly, my way of living is ugly.  My job is a great scapegoat. I have an addiction to say that I have, so there’s an excuse. It’s also a wonderful reason not to go home. It’s a wonderful reason to stay up all night long. It’s a wonderful reason to not get attached to anybody. Because nobody dares gets attached to you. If they knew what was good for them anyway.

When I think about my job. I say I love it. I find joy in it. The truth is, a lot of me has changed. When you are a sex worker you have to have a coat of steel around you. You can’t let anybody in. Because it’s dangerous. If you do, you get hurt plain and simple. You always have to have your gimmick. I’ll be honest again, in my real life. I don’t run around in lingerie, nor do I have packs of condoms all over the place. 

In my real life. Nobody gives me much attention at all. I sit alone a lot, but that’s my choice as well. That’s what I tell myself, it doesn’t hurt as bad, and I pretend I want it like that. To be left alone. Because when I do go home, I sit alone. And I resent it. He doesn’t want me, not anymore but the truth is I don’t want me either.

I have only wanted him, I want 2015. That’s where I want to sit. Because that’s where I can feel him, right there in 2015. But truth be told it’s 2022 and he’s still not there.  He’s everywhere, it wasn’t 2015 when he came back, well his body came back not 2015, not my fantasy I cried over so many nights. So I work and I don’t go home. I’m still fueled by grief, cold coffee, and cigarettes. Everywhere I look, there’s a reminder. I made a life for one I’ll never have and that piece of honesty I finally made acquaintance with, made me do one thing, I finally gave up.  I don’t care about anything I made for us because it was an illusion, so I lost it all and I stress about losing but I don’t care. Because then maybe people will leave me alone.     And although things have changed and the sand in the hourglass has diminished, fuck, years have passed. I haven’t, I’m still that woman on the bathroom floor. Some days I get a reprieve from the torture. Most of the time that reprieve is graciously afforded by that guy, whatever his name is. Reprieve is found usually found when I’m fucking somebody for money. But the inevitable happens after that. Now I feel bad because I feel something. That guy I just fucked, you know, he was tangible in my hands. 

But he, my little boy isn’t, I feel I don’t know how to grab him and take hold and keep it. It’s like a kite that keeps flying away from you. But instead of a kite, this is my boy, he is a person. And now that the damage is done. The pain and guilt I hold on to with all my might, so I have an excuse, to keep working. I go to work. I don’t come home. Mentally anyway. I keep working still fueled by cold coffee and cigarettes. And because of my lack of boundaries and self-worth, I find myself sharing a bed with a person I had no business sharing. He convinced me he loved me; he supported me. In actuality, the entire time he was taking from me, killing me a little bit every day. I knew what I was and have been to him, just something to do when there’s nothing better to do. I am used, I am his scapegoat, and I permitted him to be bad. Then I started learning to be bad myself. I wasn’t taking the high road anymore; I was taking a road. Wherever he traveled, which results in me fucking men for money. He’s never worked he fucked her instead. That made it clearer.  I’m his gimmick because he thinks he’s clever and he thinks he was doing it behind my back. Blaming me, telling me I can quit, no matter what my earnest attempts of making my job. A thing of my past, holding onto him promising me, so I could celebrate inside of myself, my dream come true, for retirement. There’s always an excuse and there is always an excuse for why I can’t disappear, there’s always a reason to go back.

So here I am sitting at three o’clock in the morning, not working, not drinking cold coffee, and not smoking cigarettes. I’m sitting with myself, thinking about life.

And honestly, now I’m fueled by grief. And I realize I am stuck in the past, concerned only about everybody else’s damage, I am never concerned about my damage. I’ve done to myself, irrevocable damage. So my job isn’t much of a reprieve at all. It’s my version of an eight-by-10 glossy that gives me a front and for some, it makes me look hardcore. At least that’s what I tell myself. When I tell myself that I’m not ashamed of myself. And I’m not what they say, that “I am responsible for ripping apart families”. I tell myself that I don’t think that’s true, but I’m certainly responsible for ripping apart my own family.