27

This isn’t a love song. Neither is this a poem some teenager with oversized fringes would post on his vampire themed blog, nor a manifesto slash note I purposely leave behind before I end it all.

This is the last message I write while I’m still in love with you.

Or maybe slightly out of it. I’ve stopped counting the days after all. There’s so much more for you to see when your eyes are opened a little more than usual.

I’ll be waiting for the day everything returns to normal – if ever that day ever comes.

Life goes on.

26

I had forgotten how to love because of the pain associated with it.

In my apathy, I felt peace. However, there was something missing in this solitude, something that made me feel incomplete, desolate.

The law of interaction states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Emphasis on the opposite.

I always thought that with every risk I took, there would be unfortunate consequences. For every word, an argument would ensue. Every shoulder leaned upon would disappear, leaving you falling.

Pessimism led me to let go of positive possibilities.

And then you came.

I learned to love again.

25

He had stopped talking to her for so long that he had stopped counting.

The what-ifs haunted him, as he mulled breaking the silence. At first, he wasn’t sure if he felt bad because he was guilty or if he just missed conversing with her.

Days seem to fly by faster this way, he thought.

And they did.

Days would turn to weeks. Weeks would eventually compose the months, the years, the lifetime they could have spent in each other’s embraces, chanting sweet nothings under the moonlit sky, breathing, sweating, living.

She never gave him the chance. The silence remained.

24

Since when has isolation been such a bad idea? We are trapped in the delusion that loneliness is equal to sadness.

Why does one like me overanalyze, you ask. It’s because I’m looking at things rationally.

Like how you feel guilty even when things are supposedly OK.

Like when you keep referencing the past when I’m in the middle of moving on.

Like how I’m forced silent as I watch you two from afar, repeating what we promised would only be ours.

And yet, why do I keep coming back to you, when all I’m assured of is false hope?

23

One:

You begin by posting an entry to your supposedly private blog, noting the time and day. This is day one.

Two:

The withdrawal symptoms will appear within less than three hours after you realize what you’ve done. Distract yourself at this point.

Three:

The first few days will be the hardest. Ignore urges by punishing yourself (operant conditioning has a purpose after all).

Four:

Keep yourself busy, until you forget that the initial distractions were distractions in the first place.

Five:

If the silence is broken, follow four, or act like four.

Six:

Relapse on day seven. Repeat one.