For Emily.

Dear Emily,

These days I'm finding it easier and easier to live with the fact that you'd rather not speak to me directly, let alone find the time to reply to my letters.

I think, Emily, that even now, miles and miles away from me, you perform your job with amazing skill.

Simply put, it matters not if these letters ever receive a reply, only that your eyes see them. I have no insurance of such things happening, but what little faith I have left is invested solely in you.

It is all I have.

I suppose if I'm being perfectly honest, Emily, the idea that you might actually reply is indeed a positive one , but that's just it. An idea. Ideas are often worth less than the cheap paper they are hastily written on. That much I know.

Ideas go nowhere, and yet we love them all the same.

Ideas are hope, I suppose, and hope, Emily, is something of a foreign feeling to me.

All I know is I miss you dearly. I regret things I've said and actions I've taken, but you know that as well as I do.

I've tried to resume life without you. I've typed up resumes and scanned newspapers for jobs. I've tried to be a robot.

Why does everything leave me feeling so empty, Emily?

If I try hard, I can remember a time when simple things brought me pleasure. Coffee in the morning, sleeping in on the weekend, but now, I feel transparent, like those simple things pass right through me. No weight to them.

Nothing has weight anymore.

The other night while I was out for a walk I sat on a park bench and listened to the city for an hour. It seemed more alive than ever before and the thought kind of bothered me. Nobody sleeps. Everyone is busy all of the time.

I think more than anything, we often resemble rats or some other pest. We think we're above that simply because we don't shit on each other like they do.

But we do. We shit on each other and we shit on everything that's given to us. This entire city is shit and the stench is sometimes overpowering.

It's those dark thoughts, Emily. I cannot escape them.

I sometimes dream of them creeping up on me. They stick a hook through me and reel me in like a fish. I try to run away, but it's like they toy with me. I put some distance between myself and the darkness but I get dragged back and have to do it all over again.

If you were were, you'd try and tell me what it meant. You were good at that, and despite my protests, it always helped me.

Now I don't have you. I have nothing.

Nothing to lose.

- as always.