surrogate suffering

The words don't come as easily as they used to. I don't mind. I'd rather not be depressed and not write than have things how they used to be. I can still make art. I can still feel.
Writing has always been about processing. It has been a way to get out what gets stuck inside. I put it out for anyone to see because I want people to pay attention to me. I want them to understand.
I don't think it matters like it used to.
Without heartache, who am I?
Without sadness, who am I?
Without suicide, who am I?
I am me. I am me. I am me.

You are voyeurs. How does it feel to be anonymously reading my heart?
You are not as anonymous as you think.

For every piece of me that you digest, I live on a little longer. You are carrying my story with you. It's not immortality, but it's something like it. Have you delighted in my pain? Have you enjoyed reading about my obsessions? My past romances? My fuck-ups and fucking? What has it been like to read all of this?
I had a sad story once. I had a lot of them. I think that book is ending. What else is there for me to say?
I'm not saying I'll stop writing. I won't. That will never happen.
I just don't have anyone to write about anymore except for me.
I don't have anyone to write for anymore except for me.
And honestly, what I've realized is that my writing has never really been for me. It's been for the people I'm writing about. When there's no one left to write about, there's nothing left to say.

I hope the next story I tell is a happy one.
I hope I figure out how to express joy as well as I expressed my sadness.

If I'm gone from you, then let me be gone. Otherwise, stop being so silent and creepy. Except for paper man. You know the deal.