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And then after feelings of elation, time has its way with my hallucinations. Eventually all of the optimism that spins vigorously in my brain comes to settle when there is no warmth to keep the molecules moving. I'm here alone. There's really no shaking the idea - the fact! - that I am here alone. I did not move to anything. I did not see something I wanted and now I'm closer to it. I'm further from it than I've ever been in my life. I'm further from you, but even worse I'm further from the idea of you.

Never: Never is a hard word to swallow. Every morning I wake up and I pry myself out of bed with the word never. You told someone else forever, which means you told me never. I pry myself up by saying "Today you will not feel her love, she will not hug you, she will not kiss you, she will not drive to your house, she will not say she's rethinking this whole thing, she will not tell you anything beyond pity and sympathy. She will quietly repeat a percentage of your feelings that she too feels, for fear that you might here it and want more. She will loudly remind you that at times she felt a larger percentage of what you feel, for fear that you might resent her for misleading you. She's done misleading you. She has no more for you, she's done. She's always done. Time for you to start. Get up. Get up."

You remind him everytime he's back here that he has you forever, and I feel it. I know I feel it everytime you remind him that he won. My life was his game, and he won at my life. I don't even know how to feel mad about that, because getting back to the point, I don't know what it is I have left to go for. I am here alone.

I go to potlucks to get asked if I'm seeing anyone yet. They only ask me now to see if I'd be interested in dating their friends. When my coupled friends have finished succeeding in playing cupid for themselves they benevolently offer to refocus my arrows for me. I go to dinners to get asked what I'm doing for New Years. Nobody believes me when I say I'm bringing my friend with me to new york that she's just a friend. They attack me across the table to ask if I'm going to make a move. They all nod in agreement that this must be the only reason. I must have desperate written on my face, since she has a boyfriend. They don't realize she's the only person who has maintained an objective ear for me in my own problems, other than Amrit.

I go to parking lots to tell one girl that I think she's a great person but I can't honestly see us together. I wish you were the only reason why not. I'm pissed off enough to move on hastily to an even bigger problem, but I don't have feelings for her beyond today and tonight. She made me realize that when she looked in my eyes and said "Is work the only reason why you think we wouldn't work?"

I go to movie bedrooms to tell another girl, absolutely nothing. I don't have to say anything before she tells me that despite the fact that I'm all she has, she doesn't think I have any affection for her, just pity. I wish affection was an organic fuel and it built upon itself. My tank has been more than half empty for her since before you, before Cherine, before Larah, the last 3 girls who showed me love. I wish having affection for me was reciprocal, that I could turn it into affection for her, but I just named 3 reasons why it is not: I don't trust anyone's feelings for me are sustainable anymore. No matter how hard I try, and no matter how hard I try to not try. Plus, she's a reason unto herself: Slowly I think she's coming to the realization that what she wants is marriage or a committed relationship, and the security that comes with that. I am the round peg that she could cram into that square hole. She knows I've been tenderized and am normally soft enough to be stuffed. She doesn't realize, just like you don't realize, why I need to be hard. She'll always think that it's something against her, and I will always be the first to witness how much my firmness insults her.

I'm done being firm. I'm done being soft. I'm done pretending any of this is part of a plan with a defined result of happiness. At night in my dreams I hear them all laughing at me, and then I walk into the office, or to dinners, and potlucks, and for some reason they are still smirking. How could it possibly be so funny? I'm away from all of their eyes now so I don't have to pretend that I'm working on anything anymore. I'm not working on me. I have a week to find out if there's anything to me outside of the work I put into me. If I don't find myself by then I don't know if or when I will. I don't know where I am. the greatest thing about being with you was I felt like I was filled with helium and soaring to new places. With a bird's eye view I could search for myself everywhere. Since you left I've been trying to blow hot air into my mind keep me up there. I've blown too much fake confidence into the idea that things will get better for me. Every smile and witty progress report to friends is just more hot air.

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