Playground of Blood

Billie was wretched.

Everyone could see the way his lifeless eyes refused to meet anyone’s and how dull they had become over the course of the week. He wouldn’t leave the basement, the air becoming stale with cigarette smoke and the smell of alcohol.

“I’m thirty eight years old and this is my life,” he murmured over and over like a broken record. He had become that broken record.

He hated himself; the scars that littered his hips from the nights out burned with hate, with such anger of what he had become. “A whore,” he spoke loudly, his throat burning from the intense anger built into the words.

Billie was alone. More alone than he’d ever been in his life. He’d felt alone, sure, but never actually living secluded mansion by himself. Having his children hate him with so much fury and resentment and ex-wife shooting daggers at him where ever she spotted him. He could feel her eyes killing him. And it was working.

Mike. Oh god, Mike had been left in the dust, accidentally. Billie never wanted it to end up like this. Leaving his lover alone and feeling unimportant, cheating on him with men and women he didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. They weren’t nearly as important as Mike was, they could never match him.

He remembers lying in his strong arms, back pressed against his chest and his own fingers running over the muscle. Billie remembers feeling safe within those arms. Nearly melting into the tattoos on his arms. Billie remembers feeling loved. Feeling like he was standing on top of the Earth, arms raised and feet spread. “And I fucked that up,” Billie sighs, bringing his knees up and tucking his head between his bare knees.

But he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. All the dreams he once had were burned and buried into the ground, never coming back up. Billie Joe was only the skin that covered his body. His heart and soul had been killed and his tattoos no longer meant anything to him. He didn’t care about anything. He didn’t have a reason too.

One, Two.

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven.

One, Two.

His head felt too heavy. The pressure he’d been applying for two hours and seven minutes and two seconds left him with a headache, head throbbing and his vision blurry. Unclenching his knees, he struggled to look in front of him. He struggled to straighten out his aching spine.

“Billie Joe Armstrong,” the uneven, shaky voice startled him, “look’t me.”

His rough fingers dug into eyes, feeling the wetness of his eyes return. “why?” he choked out, lifting his head up slightly and looking at the figure perched on the couch. He was blurry and Billie blinked rapidly to get his clear vision back.

Mike studied the broken man in front of him, “Billie could you stop pushing me away, I don’t care if you cheated on me. I don’t care if you’ve fucked up Beej, I just want you and I want to wake up to you and-”

“Mike, stop it!” Billie shouted hoarsely. “you don’t want me. I’m killing myself from the inside out. It’s like I’m standing in a playground of blood and I can’t move, I can only bathe in the blood, Mike. I don’t want to ruin you.”

The younger man stared at him, eyes clouded over. He didn’t want to believe him, Mike didn’t want to hear the helplessness in Billie’s usually strong voice. He wanted to hold him, to kiss the top of his head and keep away the demons that were killing Billie in the playground of blood.

But Billie wouldn’t let him. And that’s what hurt the most.