What is there to say? Everything is hard. Returning phone calls. Not choking when I try to speak. Getting out of bed. What is there to do? I put foot in front of foot and trust that I will not wobble enough to give myself away. Pour concrete into my mouth to have an excuse for struggling with answering questions. Stare at the window. Look at hills and think of five years from now, of eventual sleep, of digging a hole and jumping inside. I train myself to half-listen when others speak and still hear the noise in my chest. I nod appropriately. What else is there? Get up. Go. Go. Go. Pause. Go. Accelerate. Go. Go go go. No stop. No exit. No time to reflect. Just experience after experience, and then the shaky seconds spent recovering from them. Pouring black coffee into wounds. Getting your feelings hurt over people who are not thinking of you in that way, have never thought of you in that way. Wasting time playing the game, the same game, hoping it will work this time around. I have put all of my effort into things that never wanted me back, in hopes that I could change the outcome. How else can I communicate this? I do not want to try anything, with anyone, anymore."