He messaged me tonight.

Told me his job was wearing him out.

I told him to go to bed.

Several long minutes later he replied with erronious grammar, and told me he had fallen asleep in his chair.

I can see him there, slumped in front of his computer, hand limp and curled in sleep around the mouse.

And yea, I feel a surge of affeciton, which I fight with everything I have.

That carousel clicks by, broken heart after broken heart, a blur of colour and pain.

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

I'm not sure anymore.

I'm drunk on the dregs of wine, bittersweet wine and bittersweet memories.

"I fell asleep in my chair," he messages. "I should go to bed."

I'm drunk. I reply something nonsensicle.

And then, just like that, he's gone, and it feels like a piece of my heart has gone with him, but I know it's got the better.

I lay on a thin inflatable mattress in the Scottish highlands, pressed against Kelly.

"I feel like my heart is a small shriveled thing," I tell her. "I have given too many pieces away."

Trapped as she is in her mummy bag, she does not reach for me, but yet, I still feel her small brown hand upon my chest.

"It is not true, Rosie," she tells me. "You will find one yet."

And in my heart of hearts, laying in the perfect and unspeakable silence of the Scottish countryside, I know she is right.

But then, louder than the undercurrent that drives my soul, is that loud brazen voice, moulded by everything and everyone I have ever known, who tells me I'm a useless tit who should give up now.

Fuck, I'm drunk, and I miss Kelly.

Kelly, where are you?

.

Rosie.

Before&After