If I told you I didn’t think about it often, I would be lying. For you, my dear, plague me. Everyday and every night I feel the slow take over. I feel you rushing through my bloodstream and fueling my pulse. You are also present in the sinking of my heart and the nauseous pit in the bottom of my stomach. You are the empty radio static in my head, you are the nightmares that interrupt my brilliant, Technicolor dreams. You are the bitter cold that not even hot chocolate can thaw in the winter. You are in the shedding of the trees and the breaking of branches. You are the fog on my glasses and the early morning road. You are the loose strings on my sweaters and my pens devoid of ink. You are the bones in my wrist that will never sit correctly, my left eye that can produce tears. You are the calloused hands of a musician and a starter instrument that will no longer tune. Someday you will be framed and put on display as something I am proud to have overcome. You will be talked about as a product of the past. You will be written into college essays and talked about between doctors and patients. For now I will experience you in long, sleepless nights and words held back. You will be the calm before, the eye, and the hurricane due to pass. Occasionally I will stand on the shore to meet you and we’ll exchange secrets like old friends. Occasionally you will rip apart my roof and everything I hold close. Sometimes you will sneak in through my ear and rewire my brain. Sometimes I will be able to fix it; most times I will have to learn to adjust. Whatever the circumstance, we’ll belong to each other. I will remain in the quicksand you’ve trapped others beneath, and you will stay in one of folders I’ve tucked into the corner cabinets of my mind. You will cause earthquakes and I will bubble over like the volcano I’ve become. In a rare time of compromise we can live together in a comfortable little house I have fashioned and furnished for us in my head.