i am torn between -- wanting to be -- gentle? -- to help put this together -- in some lasting form -- to give you what i think you need, even if that's just space and time to find yourself -- and being angry that you are asking this of me -- at this time -- and you are asking it, for all that you say you expect nothing -- (you are frighteningly brittle; i do not want to break you) -- and some kind of -- regret? -- not that i regret the past month -- sadness, perhaps? something duller, heavier. not incapacitating. but uglier than grief. i know it had to end. and i had not expected to take it this badly. (winterson: why is the measure of love loss?) but -- you see -- this complicates matters -- straightforward grief might have been -- simpler -- to deal with --