TWENTIES

To be lonely and to be in your twenties are two things that have to exist together . You cannot have one without the other. It is what it is. There is no other way it can be.

 
I walk home from university. It isn’t home, it is a flat above a hardware shop opposite a Specsavers. Home is ninety miles away, I miss home. So, so much.

 
It is a walk I have to romanticise so as to not scream out in anguish and loneliness. It occurs to me that I am not lonely by choice. But who is?   
 
A man in a brown jacket walks towards me, I think for a second it is my English teacher, I stare at him until I realise it isn’t. He stares back at me in confusion,  we share a moment. There is a man playing the guitar sitting outside the shoe shop. I’m glad he’s there, his music distracts me from the black hole inside myself, a welcome distraction. 
 
I wonder if I will be remembered.  

Will people ever take this walk from campus to my beloved hardware shop in my memory?  

Will they read this?  

Will anyone?

 
I am twenty years old, I am alone, I am lonely, will they be taught that in schools?  
 
I walk past the banks. I notice the ATM machine has been fixed, somebody smashed it a few weeks back. The sound of the guitar persists from down the street, it’s fading though, I won’t be able to hear it when I cross the road.  
 
I am forced to take in the sights and the buildings as I walk. I have always loved West Yorkshire buildings. How the architecture is still grand when you really look at the buildings, from times of wealth to these sorts of towns in the 19th century. Town buildings, treasury buildings that are now banks and clothes shops nobody cares about or sees, on a street I don’t even know the name of. Isn’t that strange?  

I wonder what the buildings think of all this? I wonder who built them? I’ll probably never know.  
 
There’s a building called The King’s head, it says on the front of the building along with a date, 1924. It’s white, no heads of any kings on it, rams head instead, I don’t know why or what that means. I think of my grandma. There is a hotel in Darlington called The King’s Head in the town centre, it caught fire and burned down when I was about six or seven. I remember my grandma showing me the photos in the newspaper on a Saturday. I should ring her. It’s been a few weeks; I hope she is okay.   

The King’s head here is a barbers shop now, with yet another bank plonked next to it. 

Turn the corner and head right, towards the train station and you’ll see the hardware shop. I can’t remember its real name, it’s just ‘The Hardware Shop’ to me. I don’t actually live above it, more next to it.  The door to my apartment is next to the door to the hardware shop. I’ve been there three times with friends and twice by myself, they get my packages sometimes. I think of going in now. I don’t. No money spare. They have everything I want and nothing I need.  
 
I put my hands in my pockets to pull out my keys. I keep them on a rainbow lanyard I stole from gay bar back in my first year. It’s held every set of keys I’ve had since I’ve been here. I miss halls. I miss living with my friends more than I can put into words. I live alone here. I regret it.  

Inside my pocket there is a folded-up flyer for a feminist rally for a ban on gendered violence or something of the sort. A man handed it to me near campus, I felt bad not accepting it and folded it neatly into my pocket , crumpling it up would’ve been rude. I have no desire to go, and I haven’t even read the flyer, the man just told me what it was about, and I walked away. Does that make me a bad feminist? 

The flyer will sit on my table until I inevitably throw it away when I get sick of it taking up space.  
 
I fling my coat on the floor of my apartment, there it will remain until I next go out whenever that will be. I take my jumper off revealing the sports bra I’ve slept in for the past three nights. My mum gave me this coat. Well, I borrowed it and never returned it. She never wore it; I wear it every day.  

I’m back now, it’s 12:30pm on a Monday in November. I feel the weight of my loneliness in waves, coming at me, weary beach goer, getting hit by tidal waves, on repeat. Everyday.  

I am only twenty, if this loneliness thing is a feature of your twenties, can it wait a few years?!

 
I wonder if I’ll ever stop being 17?  

I should ring my mum, I think I get this all from her.    

My pen is running out. I should eat something, I have work this afternoon. I need to go in the shower, I need to do my skincare.  

Everybody leaves.  

I think I will always feel alone even when I am in love,  

Maybe it’s just because I am on my period.