2015-09-30 / 10:15 p.m.

I haven't taken a bounteous breath for weeks. Where I've refused to admit to everybody and anyone, I will quietly whisper it here. I love him and he does not love me back. Where I have not asked, and neither of us have told - this is precisely how it is. The thought crept in unannounced and terribly unwelcome and it has stayed. It has stayed while I try to sleep at night. It has lingered while my body refuses to allow itself to hunger. It has sat in my system while I've worked and I've lived and I've tried to be all that I've always been. But I haven't. I can't. And while he neither goes nor stays, my heart remains in my throat and I don't know how to ask because when we're together I am still, and maybe without him I never will be again.