It's all so sickeningly familiar.

The desktop. The dark. The music.

Wondering. Hating. Waiting for nothing that will come anytime soon.

Feeling alone even when I'm surrounded by people.


I know I shouldn't have, but I've constructed November.

It will be a cute little cafe, the kind we used to love. I'll be skinnier. He'll have stubble. He'll comment on my hair. I'll smile, half-pained and half-flippant.

I'll eat like a bird. I'll have a Shirley Temple. I'll be sweating even though it's cold. I'll have butterflies that I don't want. He'll be quiet, stoic, polite like a stranger. It will irk me, but I will have expected it. I will tell myself over and over that none of it means anything.

Small talk. That's all it will be, really. I'll want to ask about her. About why. I'll want to dredge it up. I'll have to fight myself not to. I'll have to fight myself not to unveil my latest sexual adventures - assuming such things will even exist. I'll try my damnedest to stay cool. Maybe it'll show.

I know I'll never be able to "win". I'll never be anywhere even remotely close to winning. Because he doesn't care, and he may never care again. The powerlessness will sap me of my confidence, or so it feels now in lonely, languid August.

I picture myself with a cigarette, something I've sworn against for as long as I can remember. I picture my red hair and my navy cloche. I picture the contrast as striking. When the syrup is gone and the cherry stems are laid out on the crumpled napkin and there's nothing but sauce on our plates I'll say what I've carefully planned.

I'll say, "Listen. I could go either way on this. If you don't honestly think you did anything wrong, if you don't feel a bit of remorse, and if you never missed me...then I never want to see you again."

And in the fantasy he doesn't wince. He shrugs. It's realistic and plain and devastating. I smile wistfully, still composed, and throw a ten on the table, shrugging my coat on as I take off in high heels, not looking over my shoulder once. And we never speak again.


It's the days I spend at home that get me. When I don't see anything but my own reflection. I'm doing well but on these days I all but crumple.

I hate how easy it is to slip. I hate how strong I have to be simply to keep my chin up.

I went through all the pictures today.

I didn't want to. I had to. It had been hanging over my head. I had to decide what to keep and where to put it. I deleted, of course, all the stuff that I would've wanted no one else to see.

That video of him fucking me. He was a lot skinnier then, ribbed and gaunt. I was wearing purple.

I watched a little with glazed eyes. I obliterated the entire folder.

The rest is all on my external now. If the external dies, so does everything else.

That fucking camera. He loved it. He took it everywhere.


Three steps forward, one step back. This site is the only place I write about him anymore.

The goons told me to watch Swingers, so I did. It helped. All the advice I received helped.

The night. The music. They hurt.

I've been so strong and solid and dignified that it feels almost like my masochistic right to occasionally slip up. My license as an artist to flail and sob. Not that I've cried, though - not since I went through my old phone. It sounds like pretentious bullshit, I guess.

But they told me to allow little windows for the pain. They told me it was a lot better than bottling it up. Maybe this is what they meant. This journal is that window.


It's so fucking hard not to set out on a crusade for my next addiction. The next guy who'll fit me like a glove. It's so fucking hard being so vulnerable and so alone and so rational and logical and smart at the same goddamn time.

I wouldn't praise myself if I didn't feel that I deserve it. My self-esteem isn't exactly at an all-time high.

It'll be two weeks Wednesday, and just look at the progress I've made.

His apathy is still there, though, like a blood blister. Rome wasn't built in a day.


It's hard to focus on the wisdom of the end instead of the euphoria of the beginning after seeing all those months spread out before me in high resolution. I remember every one of those days, those days that all felt like the best day of my life.

The memories feel the way coffee smells. You never waver on that smell. You never ask yourself, is that coffee or something else? Coffee smells like coffee. The memories are just as fixed in my mind...in every single one of my senses.

I can still remember his laugh, and the way he said my name. His conversational voice, however, is becoming fuzzy. I don't know why that doesn't make me more upset.

If I really try, though, I can feel, hear, taste, see, almost touch him, like a ghost in a dream. But I don't want to try. It makes everything so much worse.


There was an intermission last night in the dream theater. For once it wasn't him sneering, saying, "she's so much fucking better than you. I always thought you were fat and annoying. Just like Sarah. I don't care about you. I never really did. She's everything to me now, and you? You are nothing."

The actual dream was vague, but I know his face wasn't in it. For once I woke up on the right side of the bell curve.


I wish I could be content with just going out and walking or biking aimlessly around town. They say I need to get out no matter what, but leaving my mind unattended invites obvious trouble. So I stay here and write or read or bullshit with people, because I don't know what else to do.

I had a bursting moment today, as if a sliver of my blissful childhood fell through the crack in the door. The light was right and the heat was dry and the song on the radio was old. I felt that old familiar hope, that addictive, enraptured hope, which told me that this would be the year, THE year that I reinvent myself.

There's always so much pleasure in that foolish fantasy. I can change my outsides, but the inside stays very much the same.


I feel like I'd be better if I knew he was even feeling a quarter of what I am. But he's not.

I feel like I'd feel better if I could stop taking his feelings into consideration. But I can't.

Yes, yes, don't remind me, "can't" is bullshit. Well, this night is a "can't" night. I'm human. I'm sorry. I'll sleep and tomorrow will wipe the slate as close to blank as I can get.