...

I realize that the time will come when I will grow incredibly weary of this interminable hoping. I have been trying with the requisite gentility to stave this off. But the heart cannot feed on itself forever, even now when it cannot find the strength to face up to one more act of dismissal.

I have only to breathe and I know where she is. I will feel a tug, and sure enough she'll be where I am. But it is seemingly never enough, when all one seemingly elicits is fear. I can't bridge those final few meters that keep me from her doorstep, from that space I used to occupy in the hollow of her arms.

I cannot proceed, I don't know how to, not without a sign. And one day soon I'll do it anyway because I cannot keep this vigil. Not like this.

And then I'll fall and break and burn the way I always have, the way I always will.

And then I won't stop myself, I'll damn all of you. Because when you look at me you see only a cage.