You see her, you see him, you see them together, and it just doesn't jell, does it?

You wonder about him. What would he do? What lengths would he go to? Would he stay inside his cell of an apartment every night for a year and a half, just for the promise -- usually a distant one -- of eventually sleeping next to her every night, hearing her sighs of sleep, hearing her moan with the slight touch of your hand against her shoulder while she gently entered dreamscapes?

Would the feeling of love be such an integral and involuntary thing that he would, on occasion, unconsciously grab her while he slept and said he loved her?

Would he be killed by a stolen smile from her and be haunted by it forever?

Would he be felled by regret upon realizing she's gone, she's really gone, it's really over, to the point where he could no longer sense the sincerest optimism of his friends, or the earnest entreaties of other prospective lovers?

Would he be willing to lay himself on the tracks just to stop the train from leaving?

That's how you feel ripped off -- he just doesn't know. You feel nobody before you ever knew. And nobody from this point forward will. And you can't explain it to anyone, because you're not sure they knew it about anybody else.

But unlike you -- I think -- I live with the fact that it's my own fault, it was my own instigation, my impatience, my hotheaded reaction -- that cost me. And it cost her. And it cost a third party, one who tried to break through with everything she knew, three months of her life. But such gravities can't make up for the fact that you can't stop wondering.

You wonder where exactly you cashed your faith in. You wonder what slight adjustments you could have made -- a syllable, a vocal inflection, a question instead of a demand? -- that would have been the difference. In time, you question your own existence. Whether it's worth it to you to keep going, just to know it's going to take years to build up that kind of love again.

Well, I do. Maybe you don't.

And you wonder where she is now, what sighs she's heaving, whether the man in your place is ever going to burn as much as you did before you saw fit to extinguish the fire. Whether he's going to try as hard. You know he won't. At least you think he won't. He'll pay the bills, he'll take out the trash, he'll buy the two tickets to paradise before Eddie Money even redeems his frequent flyer mileage.

But he will never burn as much as you did.

And he knows it.

And she knows it, too.

Is it going to burn inside of him, lay waste to all previous memories, all previous knowledges, and maybe all future knowledges of love? Will he really do it?

In the great war between convenience and passion, who's got the bigger guns? Your faith and desire?

Doesn't look like it these days.

So what do we do? Do we rest with the self-knowledge that there's no possible way either of you -- you or her -- will relight that fire again? Do we just fuckin' live and learn and move on to the next lesson, pencils in tray and textbooks open?

What do we do when we throw the whole horse, buggy and wheels away?

I'm just gonna sit here and wait. Wait. Wait. Wait until somebody I trust, somebody I believe in, tells me I'm wrong.

And then I have to believe him, which isn't easy to do.

All right. So I found out she wasn't replaceable.

So I fucked up.

So.

Sorry, zuulio, I didn't leave you alone on this one. But I will now.

'Cause I kinda want to be alone too.