Vitamins,’68 Corvette stingray, and men, men, men.

I’ve got a few blisters on my lower lip.
Getting up in the morning has felt almost impossible this week.
I sit there half-asleep, trying to pull myself together,
and it takes thirty, maybe forty minutes before I can finally stand up.
I tell myself I should take my vitamins on an empty stomach,
but I always forget.
Right now, my body seems to crave black coffee more than omega-3.

I keep thinking about the Kim Ki-duk film I watched on Sunday.
Maybe I’ll watch it again next season.
There’s something about missing a film or a book—
seeking it out again and again—
until it becomes habitual, part of the rhythm of life.
Perhaps that is what love really is.
I have never not loved.

It might not sound particularly interesting,
but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about love and money—
even while soaking in the bathtub after work,
or boiling eggs in the kitchen.

Last year, right before graduating from college, I had almost no money.
Everything I earned went straight to rent,
and bills were often overdue.
I rarely slept properly.
Even now, opening the mailbox makes me uneasy.

Ever since that night when that bastard opened my front door,
I’ve been extremely sensitive to every small noise.
I still barely sleep, but things are different now.
Before bed I check for unpaid bills
and slather on body cream.
Is money really that important to my neurosis?
When I have it, I spend it all.
When I don’t, I live with what I’ve got.
A beautiful ’68 Corvette stingray, or a blue felt hat I’d rarely wear—
things that might make me look like a “cool writer.”
How important are they, really?

My friend A used to say—far too often—
“People inevitably change once they start making money.”
She didn’t mean it in a good way;
more like corruption, decline.
Is money really that powerful?
If her words are true—if love cannot change a person,
but money can—
then how does money manage it so easily?
Do humans ultimately offer their bodies more readily to money than to love?

Where does the money go?

I think about my writing.
I remember faces I’d forgotten, red marks, timber floors in bathroom,

way of making notes on any paper, the name of the cocktail and

I try to recall the love I once felt.

Not out of nostalgia.
I want to see how I’ve changed.
Compared to the love I felt back then,
how full, stable, painless, and tearless is the love I feel now?
The cold iron that once pierced my skin is gone.

I was hungry, unstable, anxious, and tearful.
But still, I was happy.
I loved like that for a very long time.

So what about now?
What is this love?
Is it a different kind of love,
or am I not in love at all?
I’m not sure,
but I don’t think I’m not loving.
So I’ll call it another kind of love.

I have never not loved.
Love, love, love.
Men, men, men.
Love—especially between a man and a woman—
once took up far too much of my life.

I want nothing from him now.
It isn’t that I don’t love him.
Of course, if he were to love someone else,
I would be very sad.

But something else has become more important.
Something that cannot be outlined with a pencil,
something no single line can capture.
Perhaps that, too, is love.