Don't let my absence take you by surprise
I promised I'd wait for you
When you wake up and open your eyes,
And turn to your side
But I'm gone.
Never to return again.

All I want to do is fall asleep
          But these blurred images of steps I wish I could trace
                         Keep submerging me in a hostile reality.
                                    
I've been staring at my ceiling, wondering why
I can't just dizzy my way into an oblivion of dreams
That I'll never remember.

                                   Laying completely still.
                        Maybe if I don't move a morsel
            My body will learn to become comatose
And I can serenely evade this Winter.

Ive 'nunquam magis sentiuntur solus* is Latin for
                                 I've never felt more alone.

I only learned Latin because
For some reason, I think that if I say things in the root of most languages,
I'll find most of the roots to these feelings.
But... Cogitationes strangulatus.
It's funny. Saying "thoughts stifle" in latin, merely sounds like cognitive strangles.
                                Not that it's any different, really.
It just sounds so much more like what I want it to be.
The English language has a hard time
Catching the depth of things
without sounding like it's trying too hard.
I want to be able to say something once, just once,
and be done with it.
To stop ruminating on you and find peace knowing that when I say
Reliquum aliud nihil est dicere
I don't just mean "there's nothing left to say."
I mean that *I've said everything I needed to say.

Silently and scrupulously looking at my dad for a minute, I asked,
"What is it like to get old?"
He turned his attention away from the computer screen
Met my gaze
Took a deep breath in, and began,

"You don't realize just how fast life goes by, until it's gone.
One day, you look in the mirror, and realize that twenty years have gone by.
It's a different person in the mirror than what you expected.
Some days, I look at your mother
And it feels like I've only known her for a few months.
Other days I look at her, and she's just so different from the woman I met.
We've grown and changed so much together.
I am, to this day, learning new things about her,
And all of them make me love her more.
Yeah, she can't cook for ****, and she talks in tangential circles
Which I just can't keep up with.
But since day one I was smitten with her.
And to this day I'm surprised that she actually chose
To spend the rest of her life with me.
Getting old with the right person makes getting old bearable."

You'll love her with all your skin, tongue and lungs.
The way that the air is just so much more crisp whenever she's in proximity to your hands.
It turns the scattered dust in the atmosphere into magnifying glasses
Aimed directly at her
Spotlighting everything you wish you could put into words but can't
Because she's just too ******* unbelievable
That even if you tried, you would offend yourself and the gods with how little it compares to
The love she makes you feel in reality.

You would do everything for her.
Hold her until your bones start to crack
So that she'll understand just what you mean
When you tell her that you'll never let her go.
But she still doesn't get it.
She'll never understand that when you tell her that you want nothing more
Than to let your dust be her dust, her words to be in your cheeks
Her nose to be your daughters nose
You mean that you want nothing more than to keep her forever.

But you never will.
Because you never stood a chance.
You thought that by giving your whole self over to her she would offer you the same respect.
That's not how this world works.
It never was.
These valiant efforts of yours are now dubbed selfish and inconsiderate by others
For not taking her feelings into account.
Because she doesn't know what true love is.
She never felt the need to have you near.
For her daughters smile to be your smile.
For your hands to cradle her head when she's sad.
To let you talk for hours without listening to a single ******* word you're saying,
Because she's lost in the sound of your voice.

Because she doesn't know how to accept anything she isn't willing to give.