contracted unhinged i won't feign happiness for you. i am currently miserable. i don't need a pep talk. all the words in the world won't change my chemical disposition. open_hearted feels like a curse today. the bed, the sleep, the cave, the end beckons to me today. i don't want to talk about it. talking isn't doing. i was so strong, ignoring you. we were having brunch for her birthday, i said something about you, the way that you still call like clockwork every three weeks even though i stopped responding to you almost a year before because of the last suicide scare. (a bottle full of methadone, hysterical, unintelligible, i felt nothing. so much suffering that i was numb. i got off the elevator at work on the third floor, turned left. i hit seven, delete. i felt nothing. that was when i realized parts of me had not changed for the better. i wanted to discard those parts.) her lips scrunched like maybe she was biting the inside of her cheek 'you are the one he thinks of when he needs to come back to earth.' those words stabbed me in the heart a little. 'i know, i know, but sometimes i just want to take care of myself.' my brows furrowed together behind my sunglasses. she raised her fork 'of course you do.' i don't want to talk about it. i know you are sorry. so many times you've been sorry. my heart shrinks in on itself. like the princess and the pea, i feel something there but far away, in the distance. i wake up alone and the pea is like a ball of lead that drags my steps. i shuffle, one foot in front of the other, because that is living. things have changed. all the apologies in the world don't erase time. 150702 ... unhinged shriveled constrained restricted 180528 what's it to you? who go blather from