Preface:
Sometimes when you watch horror movies you empathize with haunted, beset upon by an unknown form in a previously safe space. You too know what it is like to see a shimmer at the edge of your vision, and later to be pulled unwilling through the darker doorways. Except you never scream, the dull resignation with which you have let the monsters in your attic posess you again and again is indicative of just how long you have been doing this dance.
--
You stand on the edge of the darkened desert, and throw the beer bottle hard in the dark night and feel sick when the sand muffles the satisfaction of a break. The ache in your chest has crystallized once again into the genuine pain you knew was coming for you. She sleeps inside, maybe, in a bed you will not get into. For you, that short distance is worse that any one she was ever afraid of.
--
(Interlude: You have this nightmare, a reoccurring one, where they all arrive in your room at once. You sit naked on the bed, cowed and impotent in the face of your repeated failure. You wonder if she'll show up next time you go to sleep, the new girl at the end of the line.)
--
"Bit on the nose, isn't it?"
"I thought of it before she left."
"You're still killing your wife."
"No, I'm grappling with surviving her."
"Sure."
--
You call your lawyer from your living room, after you don't send the text you were going to, to ask if he has sent the papers to her lawyer. He tells you yes and you're not sure how to feel. At least you don't throw up this time. For now, you have tired out the violent creature that is your body.
--
(Interlude: The Reverend Tackles Love, Death in 'I Love You, Honeybear' Video.)
--
In retrospect today is a pretty sick day for the video to drop. You sit alone on your porch, with a pile of cigarettes in the ashtray and a nearly empty bottle of wine by your hip. Inside, the record player spins white noise. You haven't flipped it in an hour, you'll fall asleep to the sound.
You force yourself to watch it and the meaning goes blurry before your wet eyes.
--
Still unsent text: what did you think of the video?
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