Am I a stalker?

 

Love is an empty box inside my chest, a cold vacuum cube my body aches to fill but cannot.

I keep thinking of a woman a hundred miles away from where to whom I write love letters, but never get a reply.

I hear her voice in my head always repeating the same bleak words: “go away.”

I keep climbing into my car to drive to her, picking up the phone to call, yet take up pen and paper instead, knowing I can’t reach her without her calling the police.

I get drunk and drag my friends through hours of details none of them want to hear.

“Go home, Matty,” they tell me. “Sober up.”

Some even fix me up with other girls, who give up on me half way through the date when I talk too much about the girl I really love.

I ought to be in a methadone clinic.

Or smoke lettuce cigarettes.

I’m so addicted

I’m scared I’ll smother her if I get too close, white too many letters, dial her up too many times a day or week.

I count my calls, my cards and even how many times I pass her house, never daring to slow down for fear I’ll stop.

She always tells me to “go away” as she slams the door.

I need to tell her about the cube I have for a heart and how if I don’t find someway to fill it I’ll go out of my mind.

Sometimes it goes so cold it burns.

Sometimes if feels like a rat gnawing at me from the inside trying to get out.

Sometimes I think the only way to get it out of me is to kill.

Sometimes I think I need to kill her.