She's looking at me. Looking up looking down smoking look again. In a diner drinking coffee, its not good but its the best I've ever had. Reading drink smoke. Its the best I've ever had because I'm alone and its mine. It occurs to me I've never been alone before. I've always been waiting for my ride, literally and figuratively. Drop off pick up stop off hop in. I can go when I want. I can say nothing and I can keep me inside my ribcage.

Being with other people is... hard. I will tell you everything I did for the day, and you will learn nothing. You don't know the feelings doing acrobatics in my gut, and you don't know how my eyes looked the first time I got beat up, or how I hid the same look when I came home that day from school, having to explain to my mother about the boy from school trapping me in an elevator.

But she's looking at me, Diner Girl. Chain and lock around her neck may mean something, may not, I don't ask. She halfway hides her stare behind smoke. I look back quickly, every so often. I want to know what the fuss is about. She doesn't know what I'm like, what I've done, what I do. She doesn't know how I taste and she can't point out between giggles all the points of my accent, veering from east coast to the south. She doesn't expect me to flash her, or say something cynical, she doesn't even know what cigarettes I smoke.

"The thing you have to remember is, its not about you, its not about you..."

I'm alone and everything is as loud as I want, silent as I want, I don't have to the be the pirate, whiskey in hand as kids sit around me wanting to know what makes me tick. They want stories with direct advice. I have none to give, just funny little bits hidden behind jargon and verbose recounts. Its not about you. Its not about you.

The finish, after I've told them what they ask, they want a closer, something to take with them that will explain what is inside this creature in front of them, what makes them tick the way they do, "So what is it that fucked up Abi Oozi?" I was asked that once. I felt sick.

And all I could say was, "Do everything in life, like you need the money."

Don't waste your pain.