Letters. No feelings. Candy. (Patreon)

Thank you for your recent letters. You always say such kind things and they make me feel better, they do. I’m sorry if I’m slow responding, or if I never do. I guess I’m responding now.

I don’t feel much of anything, but when I say your words make me feel better, I’m not lying. The idea that somehow, at some point, my words took this emptiness or suffering away from someone just for a moment? That shines through. It isn’t happiness, or contentment. It isn’t pride in my work. It’s closer to pride in you? Or a calm feeling that maybe this all isn’t forever.

And I said that I don’t feel much of anything. It is probably more accurate to say I don’t know that I’m feeling much of anything. Something must be going on under the surface, that I don’t have access to. After I wrote in detail about hurting myself, that night I hurt myself again. For the first time in months. My brother went to the pharmacy and got some supplies, and helped me bandage my wounds. Then I got into my bed and thought about what if I bleed out in my sleep? 

And that made me feel calm, too. 

I would miss candy, though. 

I already do. I miss being able to afford going to the candy store and just dropping $20 on candy. “I’m doing a health food thing,” I’d explain. But people who work in a candy store don’t need an explanation. They’ve seen it all. You can tell from their haunted eyes.

So in my bed, gingerly touching my face and my chest, I thought about bleeding out, and felt calm. And I thought about candy, and felt calm. Let the flower decide. He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me. And I just went back and forth like that until I fell asleep.

Joey