Strict Terms

I proved myself wrong last night. I told myself in very strict terms, I wouldn't dream of you anymore. Apparently I am a rebel from the waist down—against myself.

I wanted you—want, wanted you. But dormant, I knew my desire should linger in that very nature. You were behind me—on the bed. You curled up—your knees pressing against my back. I turned my head—discovered it was you—wanted to cry because I knew you were gone and this wasn't meant to last, but this sort of linear thinking was not occurring in my head. The quiet companion wanted me to desecrate you but I wanted to close my eyes and retain this sensory imprint, even if it would wash away like chalk on the sidewalk after a summer downpour. The downpour comes, and you wash away, down the drain, forever irretrievable now that you've left.

Slightly Blank

I remember being warm. You smiled at me; we sat illuminated by the fire, fingers interlaced.

"Your hands are finally warm," you said, and I smiled back because they were. I don't remember the last time my fingers weren't brittle icicles clutching at themselves.

My cavernous dwelling is now a shrine to you—something I think you knew would happen. All my furniture—the loveseats, in the most Freudian sense—has some pallid, happy memory of all thought grinding to a halt, my frenetic mind and energy purring like a cat in the sun, idling quietly, content. I cannot stand to sit on my furniture—I cannot stand lying in my own bed.

Did you ever look at the date you departed me? Did you see the numerology so delightfully perfect that I myself could not have written a more inspired coincidence? For days now I have dwelt on that moot point—whether it even matters, or the facts and actions carried out behind the curtain are just something to distract myself from the real tragedy onstage.

I am a desperate man–so eagerly running with abandon to escape the truth I know exists, but so adamantly hide from. Self-reflection reveals only that I know this pain is knowing reality, and I have always been an artist of pain.

This is what I require to succeed in my desperation.