I fall off the edge of my mind.

He tried to break up with me via a transoceanic email.

"You just aren't treating me the same," he accused. As if anyone, and
especially me, could successfully orchestrate any semblance of a
relationship through hurried phone calls made during the haze of too
early mornings. Phone calls whose minutes mark $3.00 gone. And tell me
what if anything we could talk about. "Oh you saw the Great Wall? How
lovely that must have been". "I made spreadsheets for seven hours".
"What day is it there again?".

Perhaps I should have penned extravagant love letters or borrowed
Shakespeare's sonnets.

But I don't miss him more, though it seems I should. Slowly I regain
what was given up and I'm not saying that it was anything
extraordinary but suddenly choosing what's for dinner becomes less of
a struggle. And I suppose the doubt that was never gone comes clawing
back, unnoticed at first but by now invading every thought.

It's only been ten days. I dare to wonder how he'll fare come thirty
days gone by.

I wouldn't call it cruel, my response is far too systematic. My only
aim is to regain the little ground I've lost, to reassert that what's
mine is definitely not his.

And so I begin to compose my response to his hastily written message.
Half sentences littered across the computer screen without any thought
paid to order. Almost funny how perspective manipulates otherwise
benign words. It becomes obvious that nothing I say is retained with
any connotation of the truth.