The tiny speakers on my netbook strain to contain the chorus of girls, haunting in their rendition of Perfect Day.

I am depressed all over again. My brain is clicking through all the men I've loved and lost or let go, like a horrible merry-go-round of broken hearts.

Mike is getting married to a Cuban girl.

Loren is not, yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if he married his girlfriend.

Paul bought a house with his current girlfriend.

G...I try hard not to think about G. I don't know what, or who, he's doing.

And here am I, an island perhaps. The carosel clicks by.

Mike, blue eyes, dark hair, beautiful shoulders, and such a perfect triangle of curly black chest hair it would make a Romance hero envious.

Loren, slim and Dutch, with golden skin, shaggy hair and a complete and utter inability to grow a beard.

Paul, metis, dark slashes of eyebrows, skin as dark as burnt amber, beautiful lying smile.

G, shaved almost bald but still obsessed with combing his hair, a figure eerily similar to Loren's, but skin the dark colour of buckwheat honey and eyes as pure as burnt sugar. So many sweet lies.

Briefer, go by Justin and Conrad and Mark and Dustin and Daniel and Ryan and and and and so many faces I had to crowbar out of my heart before they hurt me or hurt me more or hurt me again.

So many faces. I feel like each one is a long needle, a hatpin I have intentionally driven into my chest and through my heart. It's a damned wonder it beats anymore.

Am I doing this to myself, or are other people doing it to me?

I can't tell anymore.

.

Rosie.

Before&After