If: quite possibly the most deplorable word in the English language, a word filled with regrets, mired in the conditional, the could haves, should haves, would haves, might be's, distant possibilities, possibilities turned impossible...if only I had known, if only. If is all the things I would have done differently, a conceptual time machine, a fantasy, a hope, an unceasing voice in my head. If is a shadow of what could have been, a blurred vision, a desperate prayer. If is an obsession. An addiction. A drug: painful with or without it. If. The conditional hurts more than the condition itself. 

If is knowing what is possible is impossible is possible is impossible is possible but impossible. If is aching for everything but believing in nothing. If is nights consumed with research, 3 AM daydreams, Google image searches of places remote and faraway. If is as close as my imagination but it is also further, across deserts and seas, past monsters and demons, untouchable yet painfully visible. If is what everyone else gets to do as you sit, legs crossed, arms uncrossed, seemingly calm, observing the journey that you would have been could have been taking, too, if only things were different. 

If is a journey in itself, after all, but it is not the journey you'd hoped to embark on. If is an arrow turned question mark. If is a missed flight away from fulfillment. It is a duffle bag bursting til' it breaks at the seams, though they were painstakingly stitched. It is what happens when you hang onto the edge of a cliff and the cliff disappears into dust and you fall

down

down

o

w

n

A meltdown. A misguided metaphor. A lie. An act. A practical joke.  

But I'm not laughing.