He sat next to me.

He lived next door from me. Across the street, in fact. He live 5 states away. It could have been closer. The timing was all wrong.

When isn't it?

He lived in my head.

Fingers, slender instruments humming the tune only out of pitch.

But that's between you and me.

I sing the melody in my quiet moments, to keep me company. To keep my thighs light. And keep my shoulders upright.

Annie said it would be forever. It would a be life of fighting recollections. Not sure which one to bet on quite yet. And quite frankly, it's not a fight I want to watch. Let me live in my head. Problem with that is that your head lives alone in a quiet house. He lives with me in loud moments of passion filled precision.

It's not like suicide was an option, ever. But it never wasn't, either. I'm a happy person. I'm content in the day, in the night. I'm satisfied, I feel validated. Either way, something isn't right. It's the ultimate unwanting: it's the essence of living in the moment. It's like this:

You have the sensation to want to sneeze. The tickle, first comes from somewhere in the chest that you've never quite traveled to. It moves upward into your face. You know it, then, as a need to sneeze. Something happens. The hair on your arms stand up and it's like the sneeze is a word resting on the tip of your tongue; it's a dream you can't quite translate into words; it's a sensation like no other. It moves. It's fleeting. They say look into the light. Bad advice, if you're dying. Ring around the rosey. It all makes sense - it's death in small doses. Incremental. It subsides. You're left, upset. Life, as you know it, resumes. Then, it comes as a wave. As a colosal tidal dream of the ocean you can recount each and every step of. The smells, the voices, who was there, and, most importantly, why you are there. You sneeze. The hair on your arms raises again, differently. Suddenly. Some say orgasmic. I say it's the sin of the century. It's hedonistic. It's natural. It's you in the moment. It disappears.

So, why is that no one ever dreams of sneezing?

Anxiety Translated

And it happened
and, well, I followed too, of course.
And you said it
and, well, naturally, I said it too.

That leaves us here
marked by the damned desire.
A frivolous tumultuous concoction like you'd make with your friends and dare them to drink. A tincture so toxic it would kill you in large doses. It is so strange how the most interesting of ingredients can become insipid suicide in an instant. We must manifest belly aches in order to maintain our own neurosis.