i care about you more than i should. there's no rational reason for me to; it's been long enough, with few enough words between us and small enough talk. we've dissolved into strangers, but to me you'll never be estranged; i think about you everyday, even when you should be the farthest thing from my mind. when i'm putting on my uniform for a school you never attended. when i'm driving down a road that you couldn't even name with a map. when i'm dissecting a cat, for christ's sake, committing an act so clinical it could be performed by a robot. i shouldn't feel anything, especially not for you. but i do. i still do.

it doesn't consume me the way it once did, thinking about you. you don't consume me the way you once did. i don't ache at the thought of you.

but still. there you are. you've made yourself comfortable in the back of my mind and something tells me you've no plans to leave.

and something tells me i'm okay with that.