I burn a lot of energy attempting to be whatever I imagine an adult is.

Never lasts very long.

I’m forever ten years old, my thought pattern hard-coded at that age when my girlfriend of three years, Renėe Dobbs, died.

I continually seek to reconstitute that friendship with people in my life, male, female, whatever.

Juxtaposing others’ adultlike behaviour toward me against the child in me is often painful and scary. 

I can only painfully stand in the harsh, brash, confusing adult world for so long before I find a way to withdraw into myself and still function marginally enough as an adult to get by.

I wish I had someone to erase Renėe from my thoughts. In rare moments of temporary bliss I think I do.

Then i look in the mirror, see an old man and wonder how much longer this ten-year old boy full of wonder and awe will watch his body age, eventually die.

Renėe, I’ve missed you lately. A lot.

I tell other people i love them, hoping to hear your voice one more time say you love you.

You never will.

How many more decades can I go on living without you?