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Not for children

1800 What’s wrong with us? Why do we treat each other this way? I think it’s very strange. We’re distant from our closest ones, and close entirely to strangers. What a world.

“Fitting the criteria,” she says. Fitting your criteria. How I try to show you that I value what you think. And yet, it seems as if the more I try, the graver you are disappointed. So, I come to know that I am valueless. What else explains the emptiness I feel when you’re disgusted with me?

“Am I to that degree disgusting? Why is wincing part of everything I do? Why won’t he call me? Why won’t she reply? Who is this guy whom people hate, and why, and how did I get trapped beneath his skin?”

Perhaps we shouldn’t tell you how this ends. And even if we could, who’s listening? But still, I guess I’ll tell you what I see: A man alone in bed. He whispers this: “I love you, but I never told you so.”