Winter's harsh enough without us having to force our hearts frozen shut. The sky is an oppressive grey, and the sun is many hours away from even considering an appearance. Tucked away in my quilt, I feel warm in body but utterly chilled everywhere else. It will be some time yet before the images of you start to thaw. Sometimes, it seems easier to just go back to sleep, in hopes of a dream of pitch black.

I keep thinking that there must be some better way of playing this game, and that surely there is a happy medium than the callous isolation that I have found myself left in. But, I'm willing to accept that there is much I don't know about these matters. Whatever the case may be, it's clear enough that the state I'm in simply can't continue. Where exactly does that leave me? I know standard response is to try and move on. I just can't imagine staring into another set of eyes, though. Not now, and not for a while yet. Which might have been alright ten years ago, but time is another ally I found a way to betray.

I'm willing to accept that situations like this aren't anyone's fault in particular. It is however only natural to ask why I seem to find myself on the receiving end of so many failures. If, for sake of argument, there is some arbiter that chooses not to intervene, but rather attempts to educate us through our mistakes, I would simply implore them to consider the possibility that some people are beyond learning. It's not as though I don't have all the information in front of me, the cold facts as to the choices I made that left me shipwrecked. I think I can even put together the puzzle pieces. It's just that I don't want to acknowledge the picture I then see.

I'm almost entombed here, amongst boxes, papers, and other scraps of the past that simply will not let me go. Having lost her convincingly, it's hard not to look back at the last four years as some kind of failure. Not so much professionally -- though of course there is plenty of room for that interpretation -- than in terms of actual emotional progress, where I can't point to anything meaningful.

Having successfully pushed myself away from everyone who ever had a kind thought about me, my days are spent hiding away from the outside world, and myself. There is a desperation in my attempts to fill up the never ending hours that offer themselves, where all of life's treats and mysteries are available, but seem profoundly empty as I think of partaking them just by myself. I don't know the exact moment where I cut off the last healthy friendship, but it was long enough ago that now even the suggestion of an outing is enough to get me through the week.

Oh, I will admit it -- she still occupies my mind far more than is healthy or helpful. I still can't quite figure out what lesson I'm supposed to take away from the whole experience. While I'm more than happy to flagellate myself for my many failings, on this particular occasion, I'm not sure I'd done anything so profoundly evil as to deserve being so cruelly denied an opportunity of happiness. I replay several key moments again and again, perhaps in hopes that through some sorcery I might go back to those times. And when on occasion she leaves me a short note, or just otherwise lets me know that I'm not completely out of her life, I have to work hard to suppress those giddy feelings of hope, that perhaps this is the restart that I've been spending all my idle hours conjuring. But, curled up in a cold room, speaking these words that she will never read, it's all too clear that this is just more fantasy. And I don't know what to do about it.

I know that this life cannot be sustained. I've had many hours of joy in this particular corner of the world, and on balance, it's probably the best place I've ever lived. But -- and I don't know this is a self fulfilling prophecy -- all things have their time. The last few months, my daily routine has been nothing short of shambolic. With no alarm to guide me, or introduce any source of rigour in my life, I sluggishly toss off the sheets only when I feel like it. And I very rarely feel like it at anything approaching a normal work day time.

Shattering though the isolation is in the office, it's nothing compared to what awaits me as I may be slow trudge home, my only companion the dull streetlights and the occasional junkie. I used to try to make a point of not staying too late as a habit, not unless there was something particularly important to be done. But now I either invent things to do, or simply find creative ways of killing time, just so that I don't have to face that horrid question: how do I go about unwinding? Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a particular problem. My many solitary interests are still very much in effect, even if some require a certain rekindling. But there has been an alarming trend towards them being the absolute only thing that governs my life.

Put plainly, I simply don't go out anymore; Because I have no one to go out with. In part this is a statement about the peculiarities of my workplace, but that also suggests a key flaw and how I try to forge friendships here. Maybe this is all part of adult life, or at least, adult life when you're entirely on your own. I know, this is the life I've chosen. But I didn't appreciate the things that made it bearable.

So, fine, you might say, then figure out a way of changing that situation. But I can't think of anything that doesn't require a massive purging of whatever few things I have set up as pillars that define me. My career, for example. Despite all my misgivings about it, I suppose my actions speak for themselves, and that I have chosen it over life.

I bid goodbye
With best regards
And hopes our paths
May cross;

Empty words
To serve as shield
For a heart forever
Lost.