The End

I covet your intelligence; I am a glutton for it. I want to bottle every one of your words and position them on a shelf, like organs preserved in formaldehyde. How do I write a thank you note to the person who introduced me to myself? Who retrieved me like a discarded paper fucking bag on the side of the interstate? How do I explain that knowing you for a couple years is like driving a v8 for a couple miles? Or like going to the beach in November or only seeing the moon in the daylight? I don't own enough lifetimes to pay you back.

So please don't meet me in the middle. The middle offers only false contentment and laziness. Nobody has to try in the middle. Meet me in the end. Meet me immediately before my annual grudge against Mother Nature, where the earth brags the same temperature as my gaze. Meet me in the waiting room, where the slow melodic tones of the machines compete with your heartbeat. (Who knows which is actually keeping me alive?) Meet me in the end, so I can offer you all the lifetimes I've collected for you.