American Idle

There's a woman living in my TV.  She's not there during the daytime or peak watching hours. Just the late nights before sleep. Moments when I'm on the way out her sweet voice creaks from the living room past my kitchen and into my bed calling gently to the only man she's ever known.  She knows everything about me but nothing about the world.  So late nights we'd turn into info-sessions and she'd ask about music, politics, history and my shirts.  I could tell her about war, about theft, about working but I can't bring myself to spoil her clean slate.  Oh my shirts were so fascinating and in the months to follow my wardrobe would be a center for her to balance all she knew.   What could your tube say about you?  Would it complain about your snoring or co-dependency, would it say you're over sexed or boring, stupid or plain?  Maybe it just thinks you're clothing is nice and that your neighborhood is safe.  Maybe it only sleeps soundly when you're there and coos softly in the wake of the morning hours.
Has this taken its toll?  Yes.  Every year the birthday wishes gets shorter.  At twenty it was the childhood friends that left.  Then in the years to follow it was the old friends, then the recent ones, and now I can only expect a halfway interested chorus from co-workers who'll forget this in just a few short months.  We sort of ran off together and this year it was just us bringing in twenty five.  TV and me.   I don't want to get all sentimental on you but there comes a time in every person's life when they must make a name for themselves.  When twenty four years of anonymity is at least four too many, when nights are too simple and tired eyes are all that look back at me in her screen, something must change, some one must go.   
Lately I've been putting off telling her about the digital change-over.  So much so because I fear her reaction, more than I fear my lost programming.  She won't take this well and in evenings that advent the big day she questions what I have been doing instead of watching her during the day.  My only response is a dull retort or silence every time but this isn't a charade I can keep up forever. 
She didn't come home last night.  I want to call but what would I say?  Now five birthdays since my old friends cared about my life and I'm left alone.  Alone with TV.  Alone with words and complaints, pictures and short pleasures.  At least I was someone.  I was someone's friend and I thought I had it all figured out then. TV and I would  leave together, put all this change-over behind us.  How foolish I was and when gravity finally pulled my head to the ground no one was left to catch me.  To do it all over again I would have found a flighty dvd player or something.  Not this, not a Television who'll never forget my angry words or gives me the cold corner when I try to go out with my friends.  So alone, I go to bed hearing no words from the living room.  The silence keeps me awake and on my side I stare to my wall anticipating the arrival.
She's home.  I can hear it.  The door opens and I hear a second set of foot prints.  Not this. Please.  It is someone else?  A family member helping her move out?  I reach for my pliers and they're gone.  I remember now getting rid of them as part of a backup plan in case our spoiled relationship needed aborting.  If only I'd known how vulnerable this left me.  The scratching reaches closer to my door and I keep my eyes as close together as I can.  But we see eachother face to face.  Her screen says four a.m.  My face says ten.   We're alone in my house like many before, who was wrong? Me? My friends? Her?  No one can tell, she knows about the change-over, the wire cutters and my shirts.  She has me, no one else has.  Chained to my house I roll over to my side and let her on to the bed.  Not even sleep is mine anymore.