It is strange. How something so powerful as the heart, the muscle that propels blood through our bodies, can be, ultimately so fragile.

It is strange how a lie, or lies upon lies, can snap something both tangible and invisible. A cord of connection. A consuming desire.

And in its wake?

There are no more intense gazes to be had. No hands reaching out. No warm voice melting the distance of a darkened night.
But there is also no more desire. No more aching. No more wanting. Just a dry, tearless, emptiness. Just a tightening in the chest, and stomach.

When mornings come too soon. And the nausea is more about the work that has been left dangling, like an old-fashioned telephone cord, left forgotten, because of some other more urgent communication.

I think of my childhood kitchen. The walls were a mustard yellow. Or perhaps I am misremembering. The telephone was mounted next to the smooth, white moulded door frame. There was a linoleum pattern on the floor, but I have long forgotten it. The phone was an opaque yellow, lighter than the goldenrod walls. Discolored from years of use. It was a rotary phone. That was before touch-tone was a typical option. That was when the words "touch-tone" meant something.

Technology. It is a bitch. We believe we are more connected by it, but in some ways, it gives us more excuses not to engage in our real life. In the real world. Hours can pass, and the limp phone cord of my childhood hangs there... the buzzing busy signal throbs ever louder.

I used to read books for pleasure. I used to love literature. Now I dread books. They are a task, a chore, a guiltily consumed commodity. I shall begin again. I say this to myself and I believe it. I read 45 pages tonight of a book of no consequence, and great delight. I did not, once again, conquer the abyss of my thesis.

I find that I don't care. I don't have anything to say.

Put this behind you, get back to your work, the kind voices of reason and guidance say to me.

But what if all of this has been a grand scheme, orchestrated by my own hand, to avoid said work, because I fear it is meaningless. But at the end of the day, the love that we have invested in vain, doesn't it also evaporate in meaninglessness?

I try to find the silver linings. I have my entire life ahead of me. I get myself back. I can be more patient, less forceful, more demanding, less forgiving. I can walk away from anything, and keep myself whole and in tact. I can recuperate my relationship with my brother. I think. And I think about the hysterical phone calls - mom - I cried into the phone... we drew blood. Standing, quivering, at the head of the staircase leading down to the deliciously musty basement.

Where did that rage come from? Why were we so cruel to one another? The phone dangles precariously. I don't smash the bottle of tomato sauce against his head. I play out the consequences and the angles of horror. I set down my anger. I walk away from it.

I walked away from anger so many years ago, convinced that it was an unacceptable emotion. I don't know that I want the anger back. I will instead turn my back. Not torture myself, not nurture, not care, not support, not coax, not promote. I will instead, go back to listening to intellect-stimulating public radio, remind myself that there are things outside my head, outside myself, outside my pain. Which is rapidly relinquishing its hold on my bones, even now, leaving only that great vast plain of emptiness. A treated canvas on which to paint. A starry night, perhaps. It wouldn't be the first.