Draft from 'Death of the Abstract Artist

"I never want to love anyone again.

Not the way I loved her.

Circling the cliff's edge, anticipating the leap.

I've jumped off that ledge before

And fell several hundred feet.

Landed on my head: I can't take the

breathlessness of falling again.

I no longer have the lung capacity.

I never want to feel the wind parting my hair for me; the thick static

seeping into every free crevice.

My love is suicide.

I tell people I never love halfheartedly.

This is true. But it's nothing to boast.

When I love, I bite off my nails.

I sand down my skin hoping I'll be more appealing to hold.

Sometimes, she is the only thing I can write about.

During those times, my mind gets very quiet.

No one ever told me that loving the wrong person

felt exactly like loving the right one."