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Does Some Gratitude Come Cursed?

what are you grateful for today?
that’s a cruel question.  but even
through the maddening fog I can
see its purpose, that it comes from
a good place.  let me begin with ‘if
you only knew my day!’  if i were
to give context, let’s say it’s the
worst i can remember in a year or
so.  let me continue to be hyperbolic
by suggesting ‘if only i could fathom
how to be thankful on such a horrific
day!’  if i continue with my maddening
context i could say that now i know
better than ever that friends are ephe
meral if not illusory.  this is, perhaps,
something i can appreciate, but with
what am i then left, and what kind of
gratitude is this kind of appreciation,
really?  can this predicament really be 

something for which i am thankful? 

maybe, if gratitude is a kind of wisdom
or knowledge, and so i can find within 

me an appreciation for knowing this. 

just like the knowledge that i am more 

alone than ever, that i am asocial, a hermit, 

which is anathema to who i am.  or was, 

i think, not knowing at all who i am now.  

but while this knowledge does not make 

for happy, it is good to know.  and so, am i 

glad to know it?  i’m grateful to live.  and i 

do want more of that: life. much as this exist
ence cannot be called life, i live.  which adds
a sort of hope for a life that can be called living.
so, i desire to live longer, despite everything that
i have mentioned above, which might and does
counter that impulse in more and more profound
ways that is hard for me to fathom.  but not so pro
found that it overwhelms the desire for a life that
is a life, that is living.  i can be grateful to have
known love that might have been reciprocated, but
how can i know if it was, really?  what a conundrum.

to be appreciative, however, is to live.  and despite

this day, and my poor pitiable plight, i do have
real gratitude.  so i begin again, disregarding the day

and everything i have said up until this point: for,

approaching three years now, i have known the most 

superior companionship i have yet to encounter, by 

leaps and bounds.  there is simply no comparison. 
this is true even (and not because of) the fact that we 

live in separate hemispheres of this earth, and have for 

the duration thus far (not much longer, please, powers 

that be, not much longer!).  and it is for this that i am 

most grateful.  and if you ask me (as i ask myself) why 

each thing for which i am grateful comes with at least

one curse, i am at a loss.  let me just assert with as
much confidence as i can muster, that these curses are 

only temporary.  what is life without obstacles, right?

these curses vanish, one by one by one, so there will

always be.  that for which i am thankful.  and my future

friends, and those in the making, ephemeral or not, will 

know me. and my love, my love and i will live a long 

and blissful adventure. just you wait and see. well. you 

can wait and see or you can just move along. and i must

go about turning these hopes into reality. even if only i

believe. what will be will surely be.