I recall the day as if it had been yesterday. 

Slugging my jacket around my shoulders, I raised my drink to my mouth. As I pressed my lips against it, the smell of whiskey ignited my senses. I didn’t drink though. He was still staring at me. 

“Need some?” I uttered, extending the cup towards him as ice clattered against glass.

“Alone.” he replied, his eyes still gazing into mine. “ Yours are the eyes of one who is alone and in pain.” 

“Well, no shit.” I scoff. “What right minded bastard would need whiskey if he was well-companied?” 

“I see through it, you know.” the man began, “I see through this facade and lie you feed to the eyes of beholders. This veil which hides the tormented man beneath.” 

I paused from his words. They ripped into my mind like lashes across an open back. 

Painful, I had thought to myself… and yet, ever so repetitive. 

My arm hovers, bending slightly as I feel the cup swaying on my fingertips. 

“Well, that’s the problem with you people, isn’t it?” I whispered, loud enough for him to hear. “All you ever do is look to see through me. See through people like me. Never once considering what it could mean to look directly at me instead.” 

The old man is taken aback, he opens his mouth to answer but I offer no opening. 

“If you would only look at us, you would see that we were never hiding. 

If you would only look at us, you would realize that we wear our pain for you to see. 

You need only look at us, and see us, to realize that we don’t hide our cries for help. 

We scream them loud, daring someone to heed our call.” 

In one swift motion I press the cup to my lips once more, downing the liquid as it scorched its way downwards. 

To the point. I remember thinking, before I swung my hand down towards the bartop, glass in hand. It shattered like…well, glass. Cutting deep into my hand, separating flesh as I tinted the transparent shards in crimson. 

“You believe you understand fragmented souls and battered spirits” I said, “Pain is but the surface of it. What do you know about the rest?”

I raised my hand in an open palm towards his face.

“What do you know of the rage?” I said, as I closed my palm into a fist, feeling the shards of glass tear deeper into my hand, “This barreling hatred that we know not where to direct, and so point at ourselves instead?” 

“What do you know of the acceptance?” I added, opening my palm and relaxing it as my blood gently streams onto the floor before him. “That this is reality as it always will be for us. The only thing left is our submission to it.”

The man had fallen completely silent, his face grown paler than the white in his fear-widened eyes. I turned to the bartender, who was unimpressed by my theatrics. He simply scowled and shook his head, a smile hidden beneath his beard. 

“Don’t worry, Tytus. I’ll clean it all up.” I said, glancing back at the old man, who just sat there. 

“Pour one for my new friend, will you? On me.” I added, struggling to hide my snicker and mockful smile,

“It seems I won’t be drinking alone tonight after all. 

I finally found someone who understands me.”