i am sitting here, and i am aching all over.

my hips are aching and my throat has big choked up lumps in it.

sipping on lemon pop and smoking vanilla cigarettes.

listening to music that makes me think of slow dances and the part in me that longs to connect.

knowing that there is so much that goes on in here, and so little ever comes out.

i buy cards and pictures to send to people, and i never have the energy to write what's going on inside. i never send them.

i just get so tired, i feel it like someone's wrapped tight bands around my chest and i can't breathe.

i wonder, sometimes, if loneliness can damage like a long drawn out disease.

not fatal, but damaging the delicate parts inside me, destroying things like closed eyes kisses and fingertips put together like steeples.

atrophying the parts in me that write love letters and desire for someone to press their lips against the softness inside my elbow.

and i think about people, i think about how sometimes they disappoint me, how sometimes it feels as if no one is as they appear to be.

and i understand being afraid, i understand wanting to protect your vulnerable center.

but what scares me most is that i can't even imagine my life with intimacy in it anymore.

i used to be able to, i used to be able to daydream and even sleepdream it, but now...i can't.

i'm not feeling hopeful tonight. but i'll feel better in the morning.