we fell through the ice when we tried not to slip (or: it only burns you faster than you'll ever dry)

(a third person narrative of myself. perhaps i'm going insane? there is too much honesty in this, and i will probably regret it soon.)

he finds it uncomfortable, all of this. this room that he has become so proud of. all the little pieces of past lives that he has accumulated only serves to add unnecessary flavor. he knows that it will soon all disappear. everything will get put into boxes and suitcases, or thrown away. it's only right that the physical follows: he's pretty sure that everything he thought he could be sure of went that way in recent days.

he's troubled by recent revelations. the guilt he had felt since two summers ago feels so misplaced now, and it is replaced now with a muted anger. he had clearly caused less hurt than he thought, even though she never let him realize it. all this time he privileged his place in the story of her life, when in fact he was replaced without great difficult. what an odd arrogance. nonetheless, couldn't she have been more forthcoming? can he genuinely wish her happiness now?

and he continues to be haunted by a spectre of the recent past. he wishes that memories were linear. somehow, despite his best efforts to do so, memories of her could not be buried. christmas eve in los angeles, he couldn't help but think how one year on, they were physically a country apart and emotionally a universe away.

and what else? stress from school is not translating into motivation, merely panic and resigned malaise. and now he writes. why does he even write at all, when all his readers are ghosts or strangers? he lashes out wildly with his words. at times he writes to redeem himself, and at times he writes to hurt. perhaps he wishes his eloquence will speak for him as a person, a more palatable alternative to the fragile and unpolished whole. surely that must be true: the two of them, who he had cared about more than any other people in the world, have both chosen this.

did he want them both back in his life? he didn't know. like this, he feels defeated. he wanted them to see he wasn't broken, that in him is still the person they once called important. but they only see this, if they even do. he pauses.