A year ago tonight I was getting ready to go to NYC. A year ago I thought I'd have a life in the Year Nine. No one whose Voice was there on the aether for me in October of the Year Eight is speaking to me a year later.

In October of the Year Six, I'd write and find comments. 8, 21, 41, 6, 25, 20, 16--- comments for one week's entries in October of the Year Six. That'll never happen again. No Voices on the aether, no exchanges of notes and comments here.

I do need to get a cardboard box and build a Fort. I need to just...hide there.

Come under the covers. It will be Safe.

I remember that. Spoken in the Three Year Old Voice, soft and shy and kind and gentle. I remember that: having a Fort there under the covers, where we could read by flashlight and have Yummy Treats and be Safe.

Come under the covers. It will be Safe.

I won't have that again. No Voices on the aether, and no one who wants to be together with me and be Small and Safe.

That romanticised bench in Central Park, just above the Met, there under the trees along the running path, our backs to Fifth Avenue... I was the Older Lover there, charcoal-grey blazer and dress gloves, talking lit and politics. Someone a bright and intense co-ed could be with in Manhattan. Not a role I could sustain.

I miss having some kind of meaning for someone. I miss soft gentle playful affection. I miss talking in quiet Small Unit voices to one another and being able to come under the covers and just be...Safe.

I do need that cardboard box. I need to just stay there and pretend that I can be Loved and Safe again.