text: It was May 2019 at a dive bar named Rocky's off Main St in Bowling Green, KY. I was six Orange Gose drinks deep and a week removed from slashing my own finger open while filleting a steak in my apartment at 2 AM while many more drinks deep than six. It was 3:30 AM by the time I went to the hospital. I'd spent the previous hour and a half with a beach towel on my finger while I ate the steak. It was May 2019 and that's where I was at. I digress; a week later, I was at Rocky's and sitting outside on the bench, shaking off the Orange Gose. That's when a girl in her early 20s plopped down next to me and, as if we were old friends, started telling me about her boyfriend. He was inside the bar, apparently as hammered as I was when I was spewing blood and methodically eating a sirloin a week prior. She told me about how tired she was of having to babysit her boyfriend while he swung between being the man she wanted to be with and the man she was waiting on outside of Rocky's off Main St. I had been that Jekyll and Hyde boyfriend, more than once. I knew the story even through a drunken haze where my ability to retain the details was, at best, as questionable as my decision making. After all, I still had stitches in my finger as evidence of both of those failings. It was at this point she pulled out her phone and asked to show me something. Let me preface this by saying, yes, this girl was insanely adorable. Well, here's what she showed me: a photo spread, taken somewhere in the woods, of herself seemingly themed on the Garden of Eden. Through the aforementioned haze, I remember a picture of her nude save a leaf covering her genital region. It was probably the hottest thing I'd ever seen, to be frank. She didn't ask if I liked it. She didn't say anything. She just kept showing me photos, apropos of very little. At this moment, I asked if she was drunk like me. She shook her head. Stone cold sober, she claimed. She wasn't slurring words. She looked as clear of mind as she claimed. She was just waiting on the man she loved, unsure if she was mistaken in possessing that love. And, for some reason, showing a drunk hippy a pictorial of herself. The conservation shifted back to her uncertainty about her boyfriend. She was asking the right guy. I had no clue if her boyfriend was worth keeping but I knew that I understood what it meant to be the man you should simply leave at the bar...and run far, far away. So I shook off the preoccupation I had on the hottest picture I'd ever seen and told her, best I could through slurred words and deep confusion, my idea of what the warning signs were. Part of me wanted to see if this girl wanted to go home with me. Most of me, thankfully, wanted to let her know the signs of what a bad home looked like. I have a working dick and a working soul and I've been swinging the pendulum of my instincts and actions from the former to the latter as best I can. Such is the nature of being an increasingly aged man. I was in the middle of my attempts at giving her answers when a guy approached us. It was him. He looked at her. He looked at me. I wondered if I was in for a fight. Instead, a smile came across her face. She jumped up and all but leapt into his arms, but the uncertainty was still evident in her tone and posture. Even six beers deep, I could see that. And even six beers deep, I could see how much she loved him. I excused myself. I walked toward Main St. and hoped that this young guy was not at all like I used to be and was still so terrified that I still might be. I looked back at them. He was facing away and she facing toward me. She waved at me over his shoulder and I could still see her smiling and exuding the same dual presence of warmth and conflict. I began to round the corner and walk down Main Street. I'm not sure if it was due to rounding the corner or the increasingly fish-eyed nature of my reddening eyes. But at that point, I couldn't see her anymore.