(undated) "Ladies and Gentlemen: In a moment of Desperation, of Weakness, presenting a confession"

I know that our lives will never be the same. The silver thread of a once tightly-wound bond permanently tarnished, frayed at both ends. this, not because of our doing, but because of my un-doing. Our turmoil is like a wave in its unstructured and unpredictable nature. Like a ripple in a tidepool, pulsing, trembling silent ringlets from the casual stroke of my hand. And now we have surfaced to a sea of silence that can only be welcomed with both relief and unsettlement. Silence, the double-edged sword of wanting and complacency.

I never wanted to write this, but you deserve to know who I am. To know what you allowed yourself to be involved with for nearly four years. Just as well, I deserve to admonish these things as a catharsis. And I write this so that should we ever speak again, let it not be of this. I'm letting go my sins to the one I wronged, and cannot be obliged to linger on them.

I have come to realize that my lust is a reaction and a disease. A drug in my veins for that delicious and temporary sedation and satisfaction. The product of lust becomes fixation, obsession, and penultimately sex. Then, after the thirteenth hour, after the expected moment of glorious transformation and penitence, there I am: naked and weeping at the edge of some stranger's bed. The pre-coital moment of doubt never strong enough for me to discern the civilized structure of right and wrong. Ultimately numb.