You’re going crazy, you’re sure of it.

It’s only been two and a half days since you last saw her, barely going on three; it’s mere moments in the grand scheme of things. Yet you feel as though it’s been an eternity, dragging on longer and longer by each passing hour, each passing minute, each passing second. You just can’t help but laugh a little at the ridiculousness of it all. You’re so pathetic.

Though laugh as you might, you can’t seem to get rid of that feeling in your chest. It’s hard to describe. Your chest feels tight, or at least you think it does; you feel as though there’s this gaping pit where your heart should be, like you’re trying to avoid collapsing in on yourself and disappearing into oblivion. You never really could put your feelings into words; it was always something to be felt rather than something to read about.

The music in your headphones stops. You don’t bother to select another song. The music has been tiding you over lately, giving you something else to think about in a last-ditch effort to keep yourself afloat. Now, even that isn’t working, and so there’s no point in keeping it up.

You take a deep breath and try to focus. Normally, especially when you feel like this, the words come easily, flow directly out from your brain, through your fingers, and onto the page. Tonight, though, it’s different. As you drum your fingers on the keyboard, there’s nothing but a jungle of tangled thoughts whizzing around inside of your brain, clouding everything. You try, and try, and try to concentrate, but you can never get anything better than a sentence here or a phrase there, most of which will have been forgotten by the time you actually get to committing it on paper. But that doesn’t bother you at the moment. You have other things on your mind.

This never used to happen to you. Even when you were younger, dumber, even when you didn’t have the weight of your unyielding personality weighing at your emotions. In fact, you’ve never experienced this cloudiness, this fuzziness ever before. At least not until very recently.

The first time, it sort of came and went like a passing illness, only afflicting you for a couple days before somehow disappearing on its own. You wish it would act like that now. At least then, you know that it’s only temporary, that you can just let it simmer for a little bit before returning to your old ways. But now, it looms over you like a thundercloud, a seemingly endless swath of darkness and torrents and torment. High above, you know, are fluffy, voluminous peaks, vast mountains of white clouds that reflect the sunlight in dazzling patterns. But here, down below…nothing.


It surprises you that despite all the time you spend thinking of her, consciously and subconsciously, you’ve only dreamed of her once. Not that you’re happy about that one time; it wasn’t a pleasant dream, and you don’t want to think about it now. It was poorly placed, too; just when you thought you’d gotten over her, moved on, she came back and now you're trapped again in that prison of your own mind.

You desperately want the ease of just going up and asking her if she’s single. So simple, so casual. Yet so pathetic, so revealing. One misstep and you’re done for. You’d thought it was obvious enough before when you asked her for her number, so it should be no surprise now if you were to ask outright.

But a string of being ignored, being pushed away, seeing her so much closer to other people made you doubt yourself then, and continue to doubt yourself now. She’s never mentioned anything of the sort, but that’s not to say that it is or isn’t true. You know that the only way to know for sure is to ask, yet that’s just not possible. Not something you do, not something you say. And also, it's very risky. You know you won’t be able to take the solitude that would inevitably come from that single botched question and frankly, you’re not sure if you want to put that on the line. You have something now…why would you threaten to throw it away?

Yet, the more you think about it, the more you lean toward doing it, or at least doing something; you’re tired of playing this game any longer, waiting and hoping and thinking something might be there…why not just find out for yourself.

But what if you’re already too late?

She said that she’d be around all summer, that she’d frequent the spot that you always used to find her in. Yet these past few days, you haven’t seen her at all; maybe something changed, or maybe something happened, and you missed your chance. You don’t want to think about it, but the thought keeps popping back into your head, like a pest that refuses to leave you alone.

Alone. What a cute word.

That’s what you’ve been. Alone. And lonely, and everything that comes with it. Alone, for the last few days, and lonely for the last few years. You withdrew, you never quite came out of your shell like you wanted to. Maybe you finally discovered that your shell was so much nicer than the outside world.

Your loneliness isn’t doing much to help you out. You know that it makes you impulsive, makes you want to do things that you would normally never do with a clear mind. As the minutes drag on, the hours, the days…maybe you’ll do something.


You’ve felt this before. This happened the last time you tried to make dinner plans, too. That feeling of anticipation, that god-awful feeling of waiting, waiting, waiting for that response. And you haven’t even sent the text yet; it’s still too early, and to try to set up something so casual out so early…well that just makes you seem desperate. Not yet, you think. But every moment you wait is a moment you’re wasting. So many thoughts fly through your head, imaginary conversations that you know will never happen. Yet you have them anyway, because you can’t think of anything else. Increasingly, you’re trapping yourself in this idealistic world where things go right for you, as if they could never go wrong. But you know that’s a lie.

You have options, anyway. It’s an unsavory thought, but it might be beneficial for you nonetheless. You always judge those people who are in that situation, but they never seem to have the same troubles as you are having. Does that excuse you, or does that just make you more despicable?

You restart your music to take your mind off things like this. An old song, one that pulled you out of hard times a long time back. It may be a long shot, but maybe it’ll help.

As the clock keeps ticking down, you draw your work to a close. There’s no use in continuing any farther, anyway. You were so close to curing your disease, just by doing other things, things that took all your mental power. Yet here you are, returning to your work and also the thoughts, feelings, and anguish that come along with it. You really must hate yourself.

So, there it is then. Do or die, and you choose to do. You know that it won’t result in anything, but at least the feeling of having done is better than never doing at all.