I should be inspired. I should be in pain. I am not inspired. I am not in pain. I have not cried. I have not written. I have not owned the words. I have not owned the thoughts. I have not been thinking. I have been sleeping. I have avoided self examination. I do not look at my reflection and thus do not see how much I've aged.

I do not see what I am seeing. I see only what I am not seeing, if anything at all. I see a memory, a figment of imagination. I conceive only of the future I entered in the spreadsheet of my mind. You are always in my future even as you are disappearing from the present. There you are, there we are, see? In a little cell in a little column on this little screen, lingering inside all the time.

You are at my graduation. You are at my wedding. You are there when your grandchildren are born. You are there and there and there, in this box.

A box. A box. what box? A coffin. No such thing.

I am not in pain. I am not tricking myself. I am not in denial. I am...