---

It's been surprisingly easy to let it go.

It used to occupy my every waking though.
It used to sow the seeds of deep-rooted paranoia: burning eyes, wet cheeks, uncertainty.
It used to fill me with explosive, sublime happiness: more wet cheeks, quiet nights alone with pretty handwriting, an irresistible urge to smile.

And I just tossed it away like an orange peel.
I've become a rather callous bastard. Even the knowledge of that only fills me with a slow, distant sensation of remorse.
Someday it will come back, and when it gets ripped out of me again I might reach down and feel the tender, raw edges with my fingers-- touch the wet, mangled remains and scream and convulse in pain. But for now?

Nothing.