We're drinking the color from black and white films again,

and we keep coming up wanting.

There isn't a stage of this game I haven't memorized.

By and by, I see how much the reflection is changing,

but repetition was always better the second time,

and I am the great King of Nothing.
 

Sometimes I wonder why I feel the need

to be loved by strangers.

It's this complete addiction,

to have someone look me in the eyes with that... hunger

and not have any fucking clue who I am.

See, I've lost the insecurities.

Discarded all the anger, remembered how to breathe.

But for all the rebuilding,

she is still gone.

And I try, every night, to fill this hole...

Making as many people love me as I can

every night of my life.

 

So far... nothing.


 

And I wonder sometimes exactly what it's going to take

to get back to that place

where I am whole.

Next month is two years since she left this world.

Two. Fucking. Years.

You'd think I would be moving on by now.

I've got worlds on my fingertips

and I dance myself into the ground

every night, every single night.

And all the pretty faces... are just faces.

I want to make them more.

Want them to matter.

I'm not even stuck on wanting her back...

Death is pretty final, I get that.  Really.

I just want to want someone

like I wanted her...

want to be completely devoured by another human,

pour myself into them and forget these stale imitations,

forget broken glass and boundless silence

and the saddest gravesite that ever entombed an angel

and all the failed stories that led me to where I am,

right now.

I am loved.

I am healthy.

I am surrounded by beautiful people

that do their best to make me smile.

I know these things...

And I do smile.  All the time.
 

That should be enough... shouldn't it?


 

I feel like I am being selfish,

like I am asking for more than I deserve,

more than the world is willing to give me.

It already gave me everything I could ever need

once...

but then it took her back.

 

And I am so very tired of pretending.