there is much to gain from this waiting, this ‘whatever there is’, this aloneness, i know, i know, and i will come back grateful to have ever felt so sub-human, for i already feel taught. i feel greatly resentful already for expectation and delusion, and i stave off madness like it is my calling. i feel exceeding loss for the self i leave behind with each day that passes, and i embrace my new body as the time moves with me; i know this grief is worthy. i say it in the quiet night hoping to raise the dead, hoping she will come back and tell me, “you are doing the right thing,” but there is none of that, so i must move on anyway. i must keep moving at least to forget, and wait to remember at the moment it begins to hurt less. is this the reality of loneliness? is this the reality of living without love? i am not sure. but it is the reality now, and so it is in front of me like a creature at the bed-head, waiting for me to decide, to breathe, run to turn the light on only to see there is nothing there—thank god—or to stay squeezing my thighs together tightly under the sheet, shuddering; back to absence. it is an impossible decision. i am the idiot after all.