really high right now and i'm realizing i haven't written about you in a while. i wonder why. i can't tell if i've been thinking about you less, or if the act of thinking about if i'm thinking about you less means i'm not. at the very least, i seem to have adapted to the permanent lack of you in my life. the orifice at my side. it is an emptiness i do not know how to escape and i do not care to anymore. i am stuck, i am really fucking stuck, but somehow i wanna be. stubbornly locked away in a box of denial.

how am i supposed to let myself be moved into the next phase when i'm still trapped in a world where you live on without me? how am i supposed to permanently leave this whole mess behind me? how am i supposed to disconnect completely from the remnants i still cling to when they're all i have left of you? when clinging is the only way to keep you real?

and why do i insist on preserving this pain? i keep it in my back pocket and never let it go because i'm convinced it'll all pay off in the end. that the act of not forgiving myself for this has meaning. that i might be able to fix it all if i feel enough remorse. but the pain can't all be for nothing, right? denial and regret; they must serve some purpose. a residual trace of you, some kind of evidence that you actually happened to me. i have pain, but at least i still have something.

you are a shadow now, standing in the corner wordlessly. a proof of existence, a taste of true obstruction, a stark portraiture of an absence. hidden, but real. taken away, but known once. a darkened, two-dimensional cloud of edgelessness. you stand there and block my light, but still, you stand there. it's almost a comforting sentiment. i should feel lucky just to have that. i don't. of course i don't. the shadow is not enough for me and nothing ever is. how do i see its host? how do i give colour and form to a shapeless ghost? how do i trace back through the curvature of spacetime to reinstate what once was? that's what i need to figure out. i gotta know how to get you back. i can't do anything with a fucking shadow. i need you to be tangible.

i don't think i believe that time heals all wounds. i think it dulls them to something manageable, and we adapt to tolerate the aching. and maybe this youthful innocence continues to leave me stupid and naive, and cynicism is the only way for me to cope with the predictability of a meaningless existence. but everything seems bleak and it always has. in 19 years i have not recovered from anything. i guess i might be weak. i hold myself back because i don't believe in healing. but i hope to god i'm not right about this. i hope the universe surprises me one day.