it was befitting that i run into you today, and though i can barely believe it myself, it was totally unplanned.

what was planned was a day of self-pity and deprecation.

even when i am writing purely for myself i still can't come out of this cryptic fog.

things are all tied together. this is all related. this terrible pattern.

do you believe me when i say that i am happy?

that same piece of paper still exists and has survived a bunch of todays and has become part of the whole ritual.

the cycle.

you see none of this because you don't have to and i would never make you. i perpetuate the whole thing; it all being tied together, the preservation, the feeling.

my feelings from that time are fashioned out of formaldehyde.

i run in circles around them and come back here. the endpoint and the starting point.

it was the 14th.

someday this will begin to make sense. someday when i stop running into you and stop wondering if your neurons fire on pathways wired those nights and days before i knew that paper often outlasts feelings. those nights and days were what taught me that paper outlasts emotions, especially yours.

it would have been so much easier if you had just run away and never looked back. looking back gave me encouragement to follow.

i always had the feeling that you knew this.

things are all tied together.

every. single. time. i run into you, when you are walking away you always look back.

even today.

it was the 14th.