forty

POST FORTY. i think i have more posts than pageviews. i am the new internet underground, and if anyone joins me it'd be ruined. i don't think i'd mind.

i said, i kinda wish you hadn't disappeared from my life. there hasn't been a response. it's true, and worded as accurately as i could muster. 'kinda wish', because as much as i miss her, she was never really here, and i'm smart enough to recognize an initial problem like that as a definite long-term red flag. i want to give her the freedom she needs, i'm trying to, but occasionally i can't help it. i'll always reach out from time to time, and if you happen to be reading this, "natalie", i'd like to apologize in advance. you'll never be truly rid of me, if that was even your intention. it probably wasn't.

so how to drive this lingering flame from my head? i lightly reached out to one long-time crush, considering being a little less subtle. accidentally saw the bus ticket confirmation for the trip i was supposed to take to toronto in feb, spent a while kicking myself over that. (it didn't happen because my house got robbed, including our whole month's rent, so all at once i couldn't afford to miss a week of work. fucking fate.) spent an hour this morning fantasizing about elyse coming to chicago, how she'd call me and ask if we could meet up, how i'd say only if you're alone, how she'd say that she wouldn't be, how i'd say, well, maybe you guys could just come see me at work. and then they'd come, and see me through the window which lets customers see us cooking on the line, and she'd knock on the glass and wave, and i'd look up, and my heart would stop, and then when her boyfriend walked into the frame it'd break, but i'd have to go out there and small talk anyway, and i'd put on the mask for a while until she left then go out back for a cigarette and either keep myself from crying or just sit there and cry.

sometimes i hate my personal fantasies. they're too realistic. for a long time, it seemed like any fantasy i fleshed out too specifically became guaranteed to never happen, no matter how sure a thing it might seem. i still think that, sometimes. it hurts. my dreams literally never come true. i was okay with this back when i first noticed it, when i was a child, and couldn't imagine wanting anything to happen other than whatever it is that happens. all my make-believe was wild and fantastic anyway, and it didn't matter if none of it came true, because it was all pretty impossible anyway. a lot of it, i didn't want to come true. i still hold on to a little piece of that, which might be why i write so many stories about the end of the world. if i imagine it, if i write about it, if i sketch it out all detailed and perfect... it won't happen. it won't come true.

it's like i can tell you the future, but only if you listen to all the things i say will happen, and figure out what i didn't say. because that will be what actually happens.

i should've stayed in the realm of fiction. no, i mean, literally, i should've remained a fictional character in a fictional land full of fictional beasts and fictional conflicts. i should never have become non-fiction. your 'real world' fucking sucks. (i think this was a message from my muse.)