High Priest of Lost Causes

In a nameless saloon, I sit at the end of a bar made of stale cigarettes and regret, where the stools are ageless but worn down by the weight of countless disappointments.

The bartender knows me by face, not by name. He never bothers with names. I’m just another lost soul looking to drown in anonymity.

“No, I don’t fucking belong,” I mutter, taking a long swig from my glass. The liquor burns, but it’s a welcome pain.

The community is me, my tribe of one. I ain’t part of any group. No club calls me their member. I glance around, taking in the sad parade of drunks, all clinging to their bottles like lifelines. No, I don’t belong. Anywhere or anyplace.

“You don’t know me,” I whisper to the ghost of a smile on my lips, the irony not lost on me. “But you need me. You need to hate. You need me.”

I chuckle–a bitter sound that echoes in the emptiness. Old tried but true and failed. Can’t even belong to failure. They see me succeeding. Can’t even belong.

I think of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Sinning, in every way. No, I don’t belong.

The bartender refills my glass without a word. It’s a silent understanding. I don’t need to say anything in this church, the decanter where confessions flow.

Here, among the damned, the forgotten, I’m the High Priest of Lost Causes. “Here’s to another night,” I toast to no one in particular, raising my glass. “Another night of nothing.”

I drink deeply, savoring the temporary escape. No, I don’t belong. But in that bitter realization, there’s a twisted sense of freedom. I’m free from expectations, free from the chains of belonging. I’m a ghost drifting through life, and that’s fine.

With a final gulp, I set the glass down, staring into its emptiness, seeing my reflection distorted by the chalice design. A knothole. A lump on a log. One with the mahogany bar.

And as the night wears on, the bar swallows me whole, just another casualty of life’s relentless march as I drink my membership away.