Going Without

I feel at a loss without it, without this thing that I do. This almost compulsive need when the twinge is there. Without it, I have so much time. So much flowing between my hands and through my toes that I don't know where to store it all. I don't know which box to keep it in, which shelf to reorganise so that it all fits neatly. I thought it would be easy, without it there to tempt me, without it open and wriggling across my palm until I finally give in. But it's not. I find myself wondering if it's worth going out and buying something, just to give me somewhere to put my time. Something to stop me wasting it. To stop me craving it.

It's going well. The hollow feeling can be dealt with until the late hours. Then it's hard - it wriggles into my mind, begging and pleading and wanting. Tasting me and my need. It nags at the corners, fraying my thin sheets as it picks away at the threads. The late hours are the worst. It has gone past a feeling of victory and on to a question: why? I wring my fingers as if they will give me answers. My head thumps, go to sleep, but the nagging continues, the begging grows more insistent. I close my eyes. Ignoring it gets easier as the sleep pulls at my arms and my legs. It's better this way, it whispers. And it is. It's the better way, the good way. The other way was dangerous, it tells me, this way is sensible. It works.

I feel at a loss without it, without this thing that I do. But when sleep pulls me in I don't notice, the begging fades and does not come back until the late hours return. It's a circle, a cycle of want and need and rejection. It's waiting for me, waiting for the snap in my resolve, the crack that breaks through, the rip that tears from the frays in my thin sheet.

It's waiting.