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Gratitude That Comes with a Curse

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. so, sure, this is
something i can appreciate, but with
what am i then left, and what kind of
gratitude is this kind of appreciation,
really? can it really be dubbed some
thing for which i am thankful? maybe
gratitude is broader, it is a kind of wis
dom 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 a hermit,
and that i’m asocial to such an extreme
is anathema to who i am. or was, i think,
not knowing at all who i am now, given
what i just noted as true and seemingly
wrong and despicable and sadder than
almost anything. but while paradoxical
in so many ways to anything good or
happy or something for which to aspire,
this is also good to know. glad to know
it. it’s gracious of me to call it gratitude,
but i can and do, even out of desperation.
it is an important thing to know. i’m grate
ful to live and i can say with assurance that
i 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, if none but that of my own. it got
me places. it might have been reciprocated, but
how can that be known, really? can i appreciate
that? i cannot help it, i do. other things. that i
yet desire. that i still believe, and outwardly. if
that is a curse, i can be appreciative of it. for that
is to live. but more than anything, and here is the
real gratitude, disregarding everything i have said
up until this point because this is different, foolish
as that difference might seem: that, for approaching
almost three years now, i have known the most sup
erior companionship i have yet to encounter, by leaps
and bounds such that 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, if only i could snap and it be 

the way it should and will be) (will be!). 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
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. i must and do believe that i will live to
see each and every one of these curses vanish, one
by one by one, so that all that is left is the gratitude.
that for which i am thankful. right here. it will be.
i do swear to you and anyone else that it will be. 

my friends, ephemeral or not, will know me. and 

my love, 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. it will
nevertheless be, and none but one of you need
ever even believe. it will be. oh, it will surely be.