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  Agitation creeps up in my hands and I look at my knuckles as they type on auto pilot. Another weekend gone, another day chained to a desk, with eyes on my back. Every moment I look at my screen blankly is a moment filled with self-doubt, self-consciousness. Perhaps even a tinge of self-importance as I tell myself that I ought to be more valuable than I feel I am.  Sending off another email, I realise that this feeling is all too familiar - a burning earning to be productive yet smothered under the weight of meaninglessness. "I'm not depressed," is what I think to myself. Then I wonder if I am bipolar, for this feeling seems to remind me of a similar one from weeks ago. We snatch at labels because they validate our need to feel that it's okay to not feel okay.
 A tightness grips my throat like a vice. The pillow is wet with tears without me even realizing it. I wipe the right side of my face. A pill and a gulp of water straight from the pitcher releases my throat from the cinch of anger. The thought of the impending chemical comfort settles me. This morning merely out of reflex, I asked her what she would be doing today. "Just the chores", she replies, "unless you have something you want to do?" Lately, I've been trying to be mindful of every real and imagined conversation in my head. Sometimes the imagination is the fuel to a fire sparked off by a simple interaction. Like a video game character who has various options to respond with, I exercise this concept and choose an uncommittable answer, instead of bringing up the many past times I've tried to include her in my plans but was only turned away. In that moment, I feel like a loser, turning to someone whose company I hate, for company. Here we go again. The mur...

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve, I'm not yet awake. It happened exactly as I had written in a shitty script on my phone while high on Lorazepam. We meet, after the longest of days. I give a hug, he detangles from my arms. I sit across him in defiance only to see him relieved to take up all the space on his seat and the seat beside his. Then I meet his girlfriend. She looks like the girl from office that also looked like the ex before me. I smile with violence. I pinch her cheeks with violence. I hate her already. Everyone is on the move because there is an airstrike and he is called to report to his battalion, and join a war where he would possibly never return from. I lose him, I lose him again. As a child, Christmas Eve is an occasion to really jump out of the bed for. Today, I open my eyes to drink in the relief that I am waking up from a bad dream. Somedays I don't even know where these dreams come from. Perhaps my mind is giving me chance upon chance to do the right thing, react co...