A Polite Decline

Houseparty. Wine. Tequila. Vodka. Dance Music. Cigarette Smoke.

She walks into the room, wearing a denim miniskirt and cardigan. Ripped stockings and far too much eyeshadow. Skinny and bags under her eyes. Long brown hair that is neglected. She is a rose with browning petals.

She is 19, and a mother of one.

She has taken any gifts that God has bestowed upon her and thrown them carelessly away, preferring instead to drink away her youth, smoke away any potential she ever had and submit herself instead to a life of poverty and indulgence.

Burn it all away.

How I envy her. How I wish I could kill my conscience, drown the inner voices in alcohol until I stop hearing them tell me to keep studying, working towards a better future, and forego indulging myself for the greater good. Unleash myself from self-servitude and be free to pursue my own selfish ends, and then gleefully laugh at my own expense.

She walks into the room I'm in, a bitch in heat, and performs the human equivalent of lifting her tail to the side and spraying pheromones. Her body language invites me to fuck her, and her eyes confirm this. I am flattered to be the first one she makes this offer to, aware as I am that it hardly has anything to do with my wit or charm. In fact, I realise, it is probably solely due to my possession of a penis. Regardless, reckless abandonment of moral fibre beckons to me, and I decline due to the polite company in which I reside, and due an obligation to my brunette.

I want her.

I want her because I am not allowed to want her. I want her because I shouldn't want her. I want her because of the social confines dictating what I am and am not allowed to do dictating me to be turned off by such an offer.

Due to the consequences of submitting to such thoughts, I answer her reply. She understands the signal I send her, a polite decline to her and her body, and moves on, unperturbed and undaunted, to the next suitor.