i have been writing you love letters from my bathtub hoping that when i drown, it will be from ink running down my hands from my unsent rambles rather than the water already filling my lungs. i hear my sink drip drip drip as the water fills the room but i am not yet ready to leave. i am under the influence of some power greater than my own mind and i smell burning flesh and metal as astrological symbols are branded into my back whispering nightmarish revelations of unrequited love and sinful lust and calling me to the afterlife. i have been studying the stars for the past nine and a half months since you left and i have finally stopped blaming my bad habits on my tendency to read the works of depressed existential philosophers for fun and i now know that they were really just another side effect of the illness known as being alive. drip drip drip goes the water filling the room and i am starting to see stars again. i belong with the gods in constellations or with you somewhere on a clear night in the mountaintops with a blanket and a telescope discussing conspiracies about the world that we will never know are true or not. instead i am here, stuck somewhere between paralysis and indifference gaping at endless nothingness and hoping that maybe you turned out alright or could try to one day. don’t forget me, i write in blue ink, and fold another envelope with your name. i hope new york is treating you well, i wrote once, but i threw it away when i realized it was a lie. drip drip drip goes the water at my bathroom sink as its pulse slows. i crumple the letter of the day and exhale. i replace the water in my lungs with air and
wake
up.
