Alone.

Alone.
I live alone. I sleep alone. I'll die alone. All of us, we're all alone.
"Rubbish," I tell myself. "Don't think such things."
Let me make a list of the things I can do alone: I can sleep alone. I can live alone. I can eat alone. I can die alone. I can watch the bubbles pop up out of my Sprite alone. I can walk to the towers at the end of the runway alone. I can drive alone. I can go to the gym alone. Now I will think of all the things I can not do alone.
I cannot make love alone. I cannot be happy alone - "wait, I can do that alone. I was happy alone this morning." I cannot count your ceiling tiles alone - "only because he's not here and I can't count something in his room if he's not in it."
Stop interrupting your own despair. You cannot exist alone.
"I can. I can and I will if I have to."

I've told myself and others that the best thing I decided to do was live alone. "I've found my strength that way," I said. "When you're alone, you have to know how to take care of you," I said. "When you're alone and you're sad, you comfort you, and when you're happy, you celebrate with you - it's very empowering," I said. Now all I can think of are ways to not be alone.

Your own mother can't even do you the justice of being awake to talk when you're lonely.
"She was napping and it's unreasonable of you to depend on your mother for everything."
But mothers are supposed to be there for you. Mothers and fathers, but mothers are better. Mothers are always better...
"I'm not having this argument with you again. We've dealt with this already. We've forgiven him and she was taking a sodding nap. I can do this alone."
"Ah, but you are alone. Who knows what you've spoken to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all your life seems to shrink, the walls of your bower closing in about you, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in? So fair, so cold, like a morning of pale Spring still clinging to Winter's chill."
"This is getting ridiculous. You'll have to get yourself out of this funk if you expect to be a normal person when he calls tonight."
What if he doesn't call tonight? He didn't call last night.
"He texted last night and said he wasn't going to call. He didn't know we'd been alone all day and we're not going to tell him either. It'll make us look lame if we admit we spend all our time alone. It's not attractive."
Maybe it's not attractive but it's exactly what we are. How do you plan to explain the fact that you don't have stories about anyone else?
"We went to the movies with her tonight. We'll have a story about that. It'll make us seem like we're doing things. And the rest we'll call...exploring. At least we didn't sit in the house all day."
We've still got to go about getting some friends.
"And why? Just go looking for friends, without any standards of measure? We won't just be attached to anyone, it's too time-consuming and trusting. It'll be easier to get friends when we have a job. It'll be easier to have friends when our other friends come back."
They won't be around always. We have to find something to do.
"Something to do has always presented itself before. The job interview presented itself. Our path always presents itself, whatever it is."
That's rubbish. You went out and hustled for that job.
"I'd given up totally on the one we got called for. And it might be perfect."
You haven't even been interviewed yet.
"I do fine in interviews."
What if you don't? What if everyone hates you?
"I'm sane enough to know that's ridiculous."

I have these arguments with myself periodically. I have them when my sense of self and sense of world is shaken. I have them about once a month, frankly. Usually this signals the onset of the bleeding of the century, and if it comes a week later than it's supposed to it'd be a serious problem, this time. My relations with him have made me nervous, in conjunction with the appearance of the Queen of Pentacles and a somewhat late cycle. We were careful, but maybe not careful enough. We should be fine. It's been the first time in a long time. Sex can throw off the menstrual cycle, right?

"I'm an effective person. When I appear around others that are okay, they seem to like me just fine."
People at school don't like you. They're all gone now. Who have you got left?
"At school they're still in high school. Summer is a different story."
It's a good thing he didn't stay. Imagine if he had stayed, seeing you like this. Seeing you alone. Lame. No friends. No one to talk to, even. Everyone leaving you in your space, totally alone.
"And what's so bad about being alone? We've been alone before. We'll be alone again."
Then why are you crying this time?

I met him five weeks ago. We went on our first date three weeks ago. I shouldn't be feeling like this so soon, but there's not a whole lot you can do 'cept center and weather the storm.

You can be damn sure he's not feeling like this. He thinks you're coming on too strong. He's not sure how to feel. He thinks his feelings might have been just about having sex with you and he doesn't want to talk to you anymore.
"If he didn't want to talk to me anymore, he wouldn't."
He didn't last night.
"He was with his friend!"
And tonight he won't be able to call before you go to bed early to prepare yourself for your interview. And tomorrow he'll be out with his family. And Tuesday he'll be out with more friends, or Jehovah's witnesses, or dinosaurs, it won't matter. You won't be talking again. This won't work out the way you want.
"That's what you said before the first date, but I saw him again. And we've talked every day since I went home."
Yes, but it hasn't been good, has it? The conversations haven't been natural, have they? You don't know more about him than you did before. You've been transparently twitchy when he mentions ex-girlfriends, of whom there appear to be plenty and one of whom wants to see more of him. You've been awkward, and you started a debate about a tired topic of conversation just to have something to talk about!
"It's because you keep getting in my way! If you would let me have a damn conversation and say the things I want to without wondering if I'm going to look like a freak, I might be able to be a little more sociable!"
You are a freak. You're a freak and people won't like you when they get to know you too much. You have to start lying and changing, now, before he sees too much. Not a lot of changes, just a few little changes to make things easier.
"He seems to like me the way I am. If I change myself I don't think he'll like me anymore. I think you're wrong. If he likes me better changed, I shouldn't want him."
You wanted all the others. Including your father.
"You leave my father out of this."
You haven't. He's your standard for everything you do, isn't he?
Isn't he?
Answer me!
"He's not always. Not anymore."
Not good enough. I won't have to mess you up, dear one, you do that all on your own. Go ahead, do it your way. Fuck it up all on your own. And then I'll leave too. Then you'll really be alone. Even in your own head you won't have anyone to talk to.
"I need a new tenant anyway."

The sun is setting. The planes have stopped coming in for now. I used to fear the night, because it made the voice stronger, but tonight, I send the voice away. This isn't the end of the argument, but I will do this on my own. I will talk to him, alone. I will face my day, alone. When friends come, they will come. And when they leave, they will leave. The world will turn, and if he is meant to miss and someday love me, he will.