Self esteem is the existential booby prize, the path from empathy and pathos to the pathological. It's snowing here again today, and waking to my angel's voice, tell her I love her, that it's necessary, good. That I see in her longing my own. That darkness invades the light. That in it always underneath is where I touch her deepest heart, my own. Not in a dream, on the telephone. Real. And I read in Freud's classic paper on narcissisism, this: "A strong egoism is a protection against falling ill, but in the last resort we must begin to love in order not to fall ill if, in consequence of frustration, we are unable to love."

I take notes over coffee...

Something deep in my throat gives up an animal cry. A howling for a mate who now lies still, fallen and unmoving in the muted snow. Out on the ice, I have come too far, sleep now approaching rapidly as night. Peace or death, maybe both. What I dreamed in this life about to show itself. Or disappear. My eyes meet yours again, angel, another, alive. And I touch you in this empty mourning, this longing ache that holds no one, hold you there. Bless our unknowing as best I can.