Doppelgänger

“I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light.”

~ Dr. Rene Belloq, Raiders of the Lost Ark

An Open Letter to My Ex:

On one of my “digging for cute social media stories in the badlands of Camden, New Jersey” ride alongs the other day, I met your doppelgänger. This is what you would be, what you would have succumbed to, if you didn’t have your well-to-do parents to catch you and prop you up every time you fell; every time you’ve decided to cut and run, leaving emotionally shattered “loved ones” in your cruel, thoughtless wake. You’d be this once attractive but now roughly hewn girl with the pock-marked face blowing dudes in her ramshackle apartment for $50 a pop.

Of this, I have little doubt.

Would it shock you to know that I gave her money… out of pity, not sexual desire. One less cock for her to suck this evening at the very least, right? The pictures of her children that clung to the dingy walls pushed me over the edge and had me reaching for my wallet. Another thing that played heavily upon my emotions in that moment was that she was about the same age as the woman who broke my heart the night before. As it turns out, I do still have a heart to break. Who would have thought that was possible after your handiwork?

I’m not sure why my thoughts went to the heartbreaker here in this dwelling of shame and despair?  Other than the fact that the sting of the split was still very prevalent in my mind. The heartbreaker is vivacious, charming, and intelligent… almost literally spewing rainbows and sunshine out of her ass. The doppelgänger is a wraith, a husk… literally a swirling black hole of dismal suffering. Sound familiar?

Another ghost to haunt my ridiculously acute memories. Another “lost Lenore” to pine for. So it goes. So it fucking goes.

I write this to demonstrate the mental gymnastics I (still) go through just to manage my daily grind, but I also write it as a warning: Beware the doppelgänger my once and former love... because her reality could still very, very easily be your future.

Of this, I have little doubt.