This is the knife-edge of madness.

No, not even that; madness would be too easy a way out. A much more sober -- grief? Like I'm being hit by waves of -- something. Not sadness; that implies feeling something, and the only thing I feel now is battered. And I haven't even started missing you yet.

Of course, I knew this would happen. No, that's disingenuous; I knew it would be bad, and I was beginning to realise it would be far worse than either of us had imagined. I did not know -- it had not occurred to me -- how bad it had been for you. I say bad like the word makes any sense. I knew I would grieve for you -- I wanted to be able to grieve for you. To say, at the end: I loved him, and he's gone now. (To say: I love him.) This would be the time wouldn't it -- to test all the fucking theories I derive from scraps of words and poems and life -- to test the faith I profess to have.

Of course, I'll get over it. You'll get over it. Which is, in some ways, the last betrayal, isn't it? To be able to forget. Or if not to forget, then to let go. How do you let go of love, how do you stop loving someone -- it shouldn't be possible, and in a way it isn't -- but that already gives the game away: and in a way it isn't. And in a way it is. We stop loving people all the time. (I don't want to stop loving you.)

I don't regret. I can say that much. Is that -- going to be -- enough? (Enough for what?)