haunted

Today is Monday and it is the first day of my very least favorite month and it is your birthday.

Naturally I'm starting a crazy fad diet today to illustrate my mood and sentiments. Deprivation will set me free. I'll starve these feelings out. I've got a goal, for the next 30 days, at least.

To be fair, I can eat as much as I want. It's depriving myself of the things I like most of all which provides the most exquisite type of torture. I've started to think it's the only way to get through to myself.

I had crazy dreams about you last night, of course. When I woke up, my mouth felt dry and stale, probably from gasping for breath.

It's wild to me that even in my dreams, you don't forgive me. And you don't even know the half of it.

Tonight I'll tie my laces and run, going nowhere, staring at a screen, until my body is as exhausted as my mind. I'll let the spinning belt of the machine have it until I'm sure that I'll regret everything tomorrow.

That getting out of bed will be even more of a struggle than it was today.

Then I'll lie in the cool water, floating, with voices bouncing off all the walls. I'll let it revive me just enough to continue to revise my apologies.

I'll get home and do exactly the same thing to him that I did to you. I'll be cool, aloof, preoccupied with a task at hand. Harried, hurried, worried. Unfocused. Not quite cold, but not exactly present, either.

This is what I always do. I might as well start writing these apologies down, so they're ready for him next.

Maybe they would have worked, had I said them to you. You of all people, would have forgiven me

But that's another thing I always forget to do.

I wish I didn't always figure these things out way too late.

Happy Birthday. You've got to be the only person to become a ghost while still living.