When I was young, times like this were what helped me write.

When I got upset, when I was hurt. When depression overtook me in terrifying waves. When I lived in a world of fear and uncertainty and I felt worthless. I wrote. But now. I haven't written a word in a month. A few weeks ago I managed to scratch down some words in a notebook, most of them self-indulgently loaded with low self esteem and pessimism. Few of them legible. Last weekend I managed to write two pages of dialogue. after staring at a blank page for hours. and today. . . I promised myself I'd write something, but instead just moved a few commas around on a play I've been fidding with for a year.

What's making me scared?

I'm crawling out of my skin. I try to sit, try to work, and I pace. I can't find anything to do but ay on the bed and feel, and even that I can't do for long. This should be bette than it was a week ago. I now know, it's not cancer. It's now yet another week between me and when she left me. And I'm still on the meds, I'm on them til they remove the (delightfully non-cancerous) growth, but I should be used to them now. Yes, it's a lot of hormones, but come on. I should be used to it.

I just, I keep running through all my memories of her and trying to reassign them in my brain. I can think of good times, and sweet tender moments with other past loves and not refeel the old feelings, not feel forced to remember that it ended. But when did it happen? How did I do it? How did I detach it before and how can I do it again?

Because I can still feel the moment we first kissed. And the nervousness. and the stretch of time I desperately wanted to kiss you, but didn't. and I waited, and lingered, and finally. With the smell of the waffle truck, and the tourists laughing around the corner, and the night folding in around my ears. I can feel that.

And even . . . our last night together. Holding you, the way you kissed me. No one would have ever suspected. Not even for a moment. And that tiny lingering doubt, the last day I saw you, and my hand on your knee in the theater, when you had made your decision, and hadn't told me yet. Hours. popcorn, and touching in the dark, and drinks, and a long walk, an dholding your hand. A whole day with a bag of my things from your apartment, waiting in your purse. Already braced and ready for return, when the moment came that you decided to put me in the loop. A DVD, a toothbrush, some socks. In a plastic bag, nestled away. My posessions already knowing more than me. That a pleasant day our was just a holding pattern, a preude, while you worked up the nerve.

And who even fucking knows how long it took you to work it up
or why you really left.

Because if I believ,e if I believe what you tod me, then that means . . . I mean fuck. I told you I loved you 6 months ago. I've been with you for a year. Does it take a year for you to realize you don't have romantic feelings for someone? That you just want to be friends? GOD or worse, to realize that staying when you don't see a future and you know I do isn't fair.

Because, if what you said is true, then for 6 months we had a relationship, and then I told yo uI loved you, and 6 months later you decided to fill me in and let me know what you'd known al aong. That you'd never feel the same way.

I have a lot of trouble believing you're that cruel.

And the thing, the thing that hurts the most is that you don't. I've been left before. I've seen it coming, and I've not seen it coming. I've felt the impending dread of someone about to eave, and the sudden plummet in the pit of your stomach when it comes out of the blue. But I don't remember getting anywhere near this far and this deep and being the only one hurt.
Because when _____ and I broke up, we were both sad about it. We were both hurt and angry and abandoned. We both wished we could have stayed. And when _____ left me it was in the midst of a time already tumultuous for her, and over an imagined slight that she felt something about. When _____ and I broke up, I hurt her as much as she hurt me. and when ______ dumped me, she at least felt the pain of losing something, that was clear. The loss of possibility, even if you won't miss the person so much.

But you. It's so clear you felt nothing. Just a bit of squeamishness about pulling off the bandaid. The look on your face was the same one you give when you bump into a puppy. That look of "oh, did I hurt you?" when you expect you didn't really. You ripped me open. In the middle of Times fucking Square you reached a dirty hand in and twisted my guts around your fist and yanked out whatever you could gran. leaving crust and loose fingernails behind inside me. Then said "Don't cry, I'll miss you" as though you just gave me a paper cut.

Christ. Is it required by law, that every year you live in New York you must have an event that leaves you sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of Times Square? Because right now, I'm two for two. I adore moments in my ife that feel cinematic and realer than life . . but these? 42nd and Broadway is not the place to get life changing news of the depressing variety.

Cause the thing is. Last year, I thought that job was the beginning of something big, something new. it was a step finally in the right direction. And getting fired and crying in the pouring rain, sobbing into a cellphone as I walked North on Broadway trying to find my best friend. I've recovered, but it's not the sort of bad life event I can look at and say "oh I'm so glad it happened now. I'm so much better for having been fired."

and you, handing me my toothbrush in a crumpled grocery bag at a subway, only a block away. After letting me hold your hand and lean against you in the dark.
I haven't recovered. I have trouble imagining recovery. And I can't imagine looking back on that night and thinking I was better off. I can't imagine holding someone else in my arms and being so glad you left me so that I had room in my life for this new magic person.

I thought you were it. I thought I had it. Not that I believe in 'the one' fuck, the one. But for the first time I wasn't scared of the future. You were it, because I could be with you forever. I could really see that. I could see living with you, introducing you to my mom. Making a home together, plans together. Having our very own chosen family. I saw a life and a future and a love with you that could last and I've never let myself do that before. And I thought finally . . . this. It. I have it.

But I didn't. Apparently you knew that well before I did, not just that day, not just with my toothbrush in your purse al afternoon and evening. But months, maybe from the very beginning.

I can't stand the mystery of how long you were in a relationship. I know how long I was in one. And there's no asking. No way I can ask and get an answer I can trust.

so I live with mystery. It's hard to get oversomething when you don't even know what it is. Not really.

and while you're a mystery. You're just an absence inside me. and my body is a mystery. It's a lot at once, is what I'm saying.

and I need to be in control of something again.and it's not my emotions. it's not my body. and it's not my art.

I'm not in control of anything. I'm at the whims of biology, and you, and doctors, and toothbrushes, and 42nd and broadway. And I'm just waiting. And I'll go under anesthesia in a few weeks and they'll remove you. And I can go off the medication that makes me crazy and everything will go back to normal.