Bigger Trick?

That we never lived prevents me from killing us. That I have nothing of Herself prevents me from getting rid of it. I create the conflicts, pick the fights. Absent foes, I am stuffing pillowcase effigies to stab until the peanuts run out, killing nothing, dissipating no anger–solving nothing. I am nothing more than frustrated with narcissism: I can’t enjoy it. I haven’t given myself permission to embrace the things I love and get rid of what I don’t need, instead of whingeing about how I can’t shake her, when I know I don’t want to. Why would I want to? As I fight myself, she has become more real, more human. That’s what I want, but I’m too used to self-pity. I’ll be done flagellating when I’m down to a cat-o-two-tails. I wanted to show her what I loved. I couldn’t, and I judged those things useless. If I couldn’t read, watch or listen to something because she does or might like it, then why have it? Because I still like it, and if she comes attached to it, I have to like her, too. Why fight that? The only bad memories I had were of my self-rue-ination. Head or heart: Which played the bigger trick on the other?

No One Else Has to Know

Fantasy keeps me warm, and the better I can imagine it the warmer I get. My imagination is fine, but I’m not feeding it enough reality; it has to fall back on old fodder, the bitter and the sweet. A spoonful of sugar gets it down: It’s all about serving a better attitude to the memories, which are all fantasies relative to many other relativities. Herself is the star of every show I’ve put on. The fantasies are private now, but I published them long ago. They are still good. Better. Nicer. More appreciative. (More humble?) I am redefining “living in the past”: It’s pushing me forward. She is on my mind because I want her to be. She is a product of it, or nearly so. She’s not yet a fiction, but she still works well in a fantasy. She said,“I don’t like you writing about me–like that.” Now I will respect it, if with a great deal of temptation to do otherwise. She can keep me warm in private. No one else has to know.

Walking in Circles and Never Laying Down

If I can’t tear myself out of this caul of hope when I leave the apartment for entertainment, then there really is nothing for me to do. Nothing’s changed within that equation since The Trainwreck. Desperation to replace her becomes the reason to crawl Carytown, so I stop going. It always comes to that. Then I go stir crazy waiting for something to happen, desperation building as much on the need to get away from the memories of her as on the need to find something positive to hang my heart on. Pursue, retire, repeat. If I didn’t pursue I wouldn’t tire. Inertia doesn’t sit well with me, as too much time with myself can be too much time spent licking old wounds. Then I try to get away from them into the city. The cycle travels around the stillpoint, and I can’t break from the centrifugal force to spiral into it, caught up in the wrong pursuit, or in pursuit of pursuit itself–the dog walking in circles and never laying down.